Data protection

The address data of the graduates at the time of completion of their studies were collected and stored electronically at the university on the basis of Section 17 NHG. The address data is compiled exclusively for the purpose of conducting the graduate survey and are handed over to the responsible coordinator of the project.

Since the addresses of the graduates stored at the university are not always up-to-date one year after graduation, the addresses may be updated as part of research, especially with the help of the residents’ registration offices and the internet.

The use of addresses complies with the provisions of the Lower Saxony Data Protection Act.

Address data may only be transmitted and used within the university if this serves the fulfilment of academic tasks and/or the fulfilment of the tasks of the university. Both conditions are met in this graduate study:

1.) The graduate study at the University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer is part of a nationwide academic research project of more than 60 universities under the coordination of the Institute for Applied Statistics (ISTAT), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research from 2009 to 2012. ISTAT is a university spin off from the International Center for Higher Education Research (INCHER Kassel) of the University of Kassel, which coordinated the graduate study until 2016.

Since 2012, the project has been financed by the participating universities. Within the framework of the nationwide cooperation project “Study conditions and career success”, ISTAT compiles a comprehensive data set that contains the data of all graduates of the universities participating in the project and evaluates the anonymised data exclusively for academic purposes within the framework of university and graduate research.

2.) The results of the study are to be used for the purpose of research and quality assurance of teaching and studies within the University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer.

The stored address data is used for no other purposes than for invitations and reminders to participate in the graduate survey.

The address data is processed exclusively by employees of the university.

All employees who have access to the personal data within the scope of the project are subject to the applicable data protection law. The legal basis is Section 17 Processing of personal data in the Lower Saxony Higher Education Act (NHG).

In this context, the transmission of address data to third parties is strictly prohibited and applies even if the employees no longer work at the university.

A randomly generated access code is assigned to each graduate. With the help of this code, the respondents can participate in the online survey on the one hand (the protection against so-called “third-party fillers” is thus sufficiently guaranteed). On the other hand, monitoring the use of the access codes can be used to find out who has already responded. In this case, these graduates will not be contacted again (there will be a total of four contact attempts during the survey phase).

 

When taking part in the online survey, the graduate registers online with an access code to take part in the anonymised online survey and answers various questions.

The responses are initially stored on a server at ISTAT during the survey phase. The survey data is transmitted via an encrypted connection.

After completion of the survey phase, the survey data are processed by ISTAT and statistically evaluated within the framework of university and graduate research. In addition, each participating university receives the anonymised survey data (i.e. without name and address) for its own evaluations.

At the end of the online survey, the participants are asked if they are willing to participate in the follow-up study in 3 to 4 years. If the participant is willing to participate in the repeat survey, they are asked to enter their address data.

The address data is stored on ISTAT via an encrypted connection to a server which is physically separated from the survey server. The address data is never stored together with the survey data in a file and is used exclusively for the follow-up study, so the survey data is completely anonymous at any time of the survey.

ISTAT is a university spin off and originates from the International Center for Higher Education Research (INCHER Kassel) of the University of Kassel. ISTAT conducts several academic research projects in the field of higher education and evaluation research. You can find more detailed information about ISTAT and the cooperation project (KOAB) here.

All employees of ISTAT are subject to the applicable data protection law. This means that even these employees are strictly forbidden from transferring data to third parties.

ISTAT compiles a comprehensive data set which contains the data of all graduates of the participating universities. This anonymised data is evaluated exclusively for academic purposes as part of the university and graduate research and the corresponding results are published. All ISTAT publications do not allow conclusions to be drawn about individual universities or persons.

 

If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Schneke (absolventenbefragung|at|hs-emden-leer.de) as the contact person for the graduate survey at the University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer. You can find further information about the graduate survey project on the homepage at University Planning / Quality Assurance Graduate Survey.