I will try and keep this thread brief, but please take a minute to read this story that details a concerning lack of transparency at KU: https://www2.ljworld.com/news/ku/2020/aug/13/ku-survey-didnt-ask-if-students-wanted-to-return-to-campus-claim-of-overwhelming-desire-to-do-so-was-based-on-students-saying-they-planned-on-in-person-classes/

For starters, KU for *weeks* has claimed, without providing the data, that the survey detailed in this story showed that "overwhelmingly", students wanted to come back to campus in the fall.

The survey did not actually ask them that question.

KU admits in this story to basing that claim on the fact that 75% of responding students said they were *planning* on taking some form of in-person classes in the fall.

The survey was administered in early July, well before KU had actually released its schedule for fall classes

Also in July, Kansas saw an exponential uptick in new COVID-19 cases, @GovLauraKelly said the state may need more restrictive gathering guidelines, and KU's plan to test the community for the virus was entirely unclear.

It is entirely reasonable to think that many of the 7,981 students who responded to this survey had an entirely different picture in mind when they gave their answers.

Yet, KU has continued to tout this survey as evidence that students *want* an in-person semester.

And I'm not saying they don't! But, it seems as though this data was intentionally interpreted to show something that the survey simply didn't ask.

How do I know this? I asked a doctoral student in KU's political science department who studies polling methodology to take a look.

"(This survey) doesn't measure enthusiasm at all," he said. "It just measures whether you're holding onto a spot in a certain class."

Now to the transparency part: I first requested this data on July 29. On Aug. 3, KU said it needed more time to respond, which happens frequently and I didn't think anything of.

But on Aug. 10, they replied and said they needed TWO WEEKS more to respond.

That would take things to Aug. 24, the first day of KU's classes. I thought that was too long to wait to know if students actually wanted to come back.

So @LJWorld wrote a story yesterday about their hesitancy in releasing the data.

8 hours after the story runs (at 11:43 p.m.), KU's open records office sends me the 4-page executive summary of this survey. Why they didn't include this with the initial reply, I can't say.

When they send the summary, they say that if I want a fuller picture of the data, they will need to estimate a quote of how much it will cost to get the information because the 7,981 responses need to be anonymized.

Keep in mind: KU officials have had this data since July 16.

Remember the political science doctoral student I mentioned? He demonstrated for me, mid-interview, that exporting the survey data takes less than 5 minutes and makes the data fully anonymous.

He used KU's own survey software to do this.

This clearly demonstrates that the Open Records office was prepared to charge @LJWorld world a substantive amount of money for making the data anonymous, when it can, quite literally, be completed with 3 clicks of your mouse.

In terms of KU's handling of the survey data, I cannot speak to why it wasn't released to the public sooner. The survey itself was a collaborative effort between the KU Provost Office and @KUSenate.

When I asked KU why it wasn't publicized sooner, a spokesperson laid the blame for the data not being released sooner on those @KUSenate representatives.

The point here is not to make a judgement on whether KU students actually want an in-person semester. They very well might!

But what the community writ large should be concerned about is that KU used this survey, which clearly does not measure any amount of student *enthusiasm* about the fall, as basically its only public justification for returning in the fall.

And when the survey turns out to not actually prove what officials have been saying for weeks, and when peoples' lives may be at risk during a global health crisis, that seems unbecoming of the university that trained me to write this story. /END