Qualtrics built in Anonymize Response option

Enabling Anonymize Response will cause the following:

  • No IP-addresses (and related location information) will be recorded.
  • The link between link respondent and response will be broken. You won’t be able to see which respondent gave which response.
  • You can see however if a respondent has done (completed) the survey or not.

The Anonymize Response option can be enabled in two different ways:

  • Via Survey options > Anonymize Response
    This is the default way: responses of all respondents will be anonymized.
  • Via Survey flow
    Different settings can be set for different subsets of respondents.
    For example: respondents who are screened out in an early stage because they don’t meet the survey criteria.

    Survey flow > Add End of survey element in > Customize > Option: Do NOT record any personal information and remove panel association. This will scrub the response of identifying information such as the IP address before saving it in the results. This is also useful if you need to send your survey to a panel so that you know who is participating, but if you also need to keep individual responses anonymous.

Undoing Anonymize response

  • If Anonymize response is set before you distribute your survey link, the anonymization CAN’T be undone. Be careful in case you want do follow up research.
  • If Anonymize response is set after you have distributed your survey link, the anonymization CAN be undone. Please choose the appropriate method for your research.

More about Anonymize Response

Anonymize response in surveys in progress or finished surveys

Are you running a survey, but you haven’t chosen Anonymize response? You can still apply it. This will anonymize all submissions (both responses that were already submitted and future submissions). The anonymization can however be reverted. The same applies to finished surveys.