UW-Madison Qualtrics - Records Retention

Like any other university document or correspondence, surveys should have a life cycle and follow approved records management guidelines.

For general information about Records Management at UW-Madison see the UW-Madison Records Management website. For information specifically related to maintaining and archiving research data see Policy on Data Stewardship, Access and Retention.

Qualtrics surveys are used in a wide variety of campus activities that go beyond research data collection. For that reason it is difficult to provide a simple guide for how long survey data should be retained. Below we have provided links to some of the retention schedules that reference surveys explicitly or for schedules related to activities that we believe might use surveys in some capacity. Since Qualtrics is frequently used as a convenient form for gathering information, there are likely additional activities that require adherence to a records retention schedule.


University of Wisconsin System: General Records Schedule

  • UWADM010 EXTERNAL COMPLAINTS (page 9)
  • UWADM020 VOTING MATERIALS—ELECTIONS TO COMMITTEES (page 13)
  • UWADM021 VOTING MATERIALS—EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ACTIONS (page 13)
  • UWADM026 SURVEYS/QUESTIONNAIRES—NON-ACADEMIC (page 15)

University of Wisconsin System & UW-Madison: General Records Schedule Human Resources and Related Records

  • UWHR0300 Grievance/Complaint Tracking Log (page 17)
  • UWHR0501 HIPAA Privacy Complaint Files (page 27)
  • UWHR0602 EAP-Employee Assistance Satisfaction Surveys (page 29)
  • UWHR0800 Student Evaluations or Summary of Tenured Faculty, Academic Staff, Teaching Assistants and PA’s (page 34)
  • UWHR0801 Student Evaluations or Summary of Probationary Faculty for Tenure (page 35)
  • UWHR0901 Course Evaluation for Employee Training (page 36)

University of Wisconsin - Madison: Records Retention and Disposition Schedule for Undergraduate and Career Graduate Student Records and other Student Related Records

  • UWUGS602 Athletic Participation/Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act -EADA Documents (page 23)
  • UWUGS905 Course - Student Course Evaluations (page 31)

If you have questions identifying a record schedule for your survey, please reach out to the Records Management office at recmgmt@library.wisc.edu.