Surveys are a useful tool for the medical community, but as a membership society, our foremost concern is to ensure our members have a good online experience and that their data integrity is protected. This policy provides a framework for requesting surveys to be disseminated by the BSG to members via email.
PrinciplesFor the Society to consider disseminating a survey to the members, it must:
- Be relevant to members
- Be of high quality
- Be free from bias
- Be legal and meet GDPR requirements, and have proper security protection and process to protect respondents’ data
- Be transparent, and include a clear time frame and process for publication of results
If a request is found to breach these principles, BSG reserves the right to decline further requests until a satisfactory explanation and assurance of compliance is received as determined by the Executive acting on advice from the Communications team.
Surveys produced by a BSG Committee or CRGAll surveys sent out on behalf of a BSG section must be approved by the Committee Chair, or the Research Chair if a CRG. It is important that the full data protection process is adhered to. For this reason, the BSG office will build and manage all BSG surveys. We will be unable to share surveys that are not created through this method.
If the request is dissemination to 1 further section, the requester must have approval from that Chair. If the request is to contact the whole membership database, a large portion (more than 2 sections, or other large segmentation), or relates to a sensitive topic, the request will need approval from the Executive.
Surveys produced by an individual BSG memberRequests to send a survey out to a Section must be approved by the relevant Section Chair. If there are concerns as to whether a survey request meets the general principles listed above, the request will be escalated to the Executive. If the request is to survey the whole membership database, a large portion, or relates to a sensitive topic, Executive approval will be necessary.
The requester must demonstrate evidence of good data control, provide a clear overview of the purpose of the survey, include how the results will be used and when they will be available. The BSG reserves the right not to publish a survey if these criteria cannot be met.
Surveys produced by a non BSG memberThe request must be made via a BSG member, and will be treated as a survey produced by a BSG member and will be considered using the criteria already defined. The general principles must be met, there should be no commercial gain for the authors. The origin of the survey must be completely transparent, and the data must benefit the BSG or its members.
