Institutional Research, Analytics, and Planning Support

Consultation and Resources

IRAPS survey consultations can help UC Santa Cruz community members learn more about the survey data we collect and topical reports that might be helpful. IRAPS can also help campus community members to plan survey projects, time allowing. After you submit a survey consultation request, someone from IRAPS will contact you to better understand your goals and timeline.

How to Request Support from IRAPS

Involving IRAPS in Research Design and Survey Design

IRAPS should be part of the research design and survey instrument development process, for any surveys that require IRAPS help to administer the surveys. In addition, we recommend asking IRAPS for survey design advice from the start, rather than relying on organizations that are external to UC Santa Cruz in any initial design of such surveys, to help ensure that surveys are designed that reflect the context of the UC Santa Cruz campus community.

Many Ways for Campus Partners to Work with IRAPS on Survey Projects. Full collaboration, design advice, or external organization administration are the main ways. Contact iraps@ucsc.edu for more information.

Timing for Involving IRAPS

To allow the best use of staff time and capacity, and because of the many steps involved in proper design, setup, preparation, and testing of surveys, IRAPS is only able to help with surveys that are launching with a time window of at least 4-6 weeks ahead of when IRAPS is notified.

If you request support for your survey project, we will set up a meeting with you to discuss your project. Please refer to the Standard Survey Intake Process and Consultation Meeting Agenda below to learn more.

IRAPS Contact Form
Elements of a Standard Survey Intake Process. Receive a consultation request, follow up via email, schedule a meeting, IRAPS considers level of involvement, meet and cover all agenda topics, summary to request, and making a shared project document. Contact iraps@ucsc.edu for more information.

Standard Agenda for Survey Consultation Meetings

1. What is the goal of the survey? What broad questions are you trying to answer?

2. Do you know if other survey data have been collected on this topic and when?

3. Whom do you plan to survey (for example, undergraduate students, faculty, staff?) How do you plan to reach them (listserv, email, website)?

4. When would you like to conduct the survey? (note our campus survey calendar)

5. What help would you like from IRAPS? Some possibilities are below:

  • Survey question/instrument development
  • Selection of survey tools and/or survey programming (for example, Qualtrics)
  • Thinking about data security and privacy issues
  • Developing a survey promotion plan (messaging, incentives)
  • Administering the survey (data collection, response rate monitoring)
  • Data analysis/reporting (creating reports, identifying insights)

6. Other questions/topics you’d like to discuss?

Survey Best Practices

To request access to a collection of materials on survey development (a Canvas-based course), submit your request to our webform.

Last modified: Sep 23, 2025