CUPA-HR Statements and Practices in the Protection of Data Anonymity

CUPA-HR data is the benchmarking standard for higher ed workforce salaries and demographics. Our data is current, representative, comprehensive, and reliable. More than 1,000 higher education institutions provide us with their data every year, predicated on the understanding that we will maintain the confidentiality of their data at both the institutional and employee levels. We maintain data anonymity with the following policies and practices:

1. Employee names or numbers are not associated with the data provided. Institutions are not asked to provide specific names or employee numbers along with other employee data.
2. Institution names are not reported with specific data. The only people who see an institution’s name associated with its data are the professionally trained members of our research team and the individuals at the institution providing the information.
3. Data are aggregated for all survey results. For all survey results, institutions see only aggregated information. In addition, we never publish aggregated data from fewer than five institutions, and we do not publish aggregated data in instances where a single institution represents more than 25% of the data.
4. The provision of demographic data (gender, ethnicity, birth year, years in position) is optional. If institutions do not feel comfortable providing it, they do not have to do so. If institutions choose to provide only salary information, they will still be considered survey participants and will still get the participant discount on survey results.

These safeguards are not new. We have been collecting demographic incumbent-level data on our Administrators Survey for more than 20 years and on our Professionals Survey, Staff Survey, and Faculty Survey since 2016-17. We will continue to maintain institutional and employee anonymity in all our reporting for all surveys.

It is our hope that our policies and practices in protecting the confidentiality of the data you provide will facilitate the provision of this data, thereby enhancing the validity, representativeness, and comprehensiveness of our salary surveys. The value of contributing this data is that it allows us to provide institutions with the benchmarking information they need to assess workforce composition and pay at their own institution and — for the greater good — higher education overall.

CUPA-HR is the only organization that collects comprehensive and representative demographic and salary information across the higher ed employee spectrum: administrators, professionals, staff, and faculty. We are committed to maintaining the anonymity of this information, as we understand that all the data we collect (including salary information) is sensitive and is potentially personally identifiable.

If you have any questions or additional concerns, Ask Research.