Warning about college "survey" requests!!!

[Flatbush Flyer]

Firstly, thanks to the CC mods for quickly removing a post from several hours ago in which a scammer asked for help in gathering info for a "master's degree" study by clicking on a "survey."

 

For anyone even remotely involved in higher education, the included web link, which was not a ".EDU" address was a dead giveaway. Even then, many "spoofers" use phoney ".EDU" addresses to draw folks into their phishing/malware schemes.

 

On the academic side of the equation, no legitimate graduate level thesis/dissertation would/should ever pass muster when it's data collection relies on an unvalidated source like the CC forum.

 

NEVER click on an unsolicited/unverified web link - even those that end in ".EDU"

[simplyrubies]

Thanks for the warning. Unfortunately, I filled in the survey without thinking about it even though I was skeptical about the lack of institution name at the end. It's a good thing that I did not give them my email address. Hoping that my computer was not infected with malware, but I will check now.

[puppycanducruise]

Those requests for info for a college thesis show up once in a while, and I have to wonder.

They do not seem to be a legitimate way to gather data, so I don't click on the link. 

Thanks for the warning.

[Deesquared]

I thought that was a strange request. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[lenquixote66]

I responded years ago on another cruise site and never had a  problem but it is good to know that it is a  scam.

[sdschwrt]

10 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

 

 

For anyone even remotely involved in higher education, the included web link, which was not a ".EDU" address was a dead giveaway. Even then, many "spoofers" use phoney ".EDU" addresses to draw folks into their phishing/malware schemes.

 

 

 

NEVER click on an unsolicited/unverified web link - even those that end in ".EDU"

As one who is actively rather than remotely involved in higher education I must take issue with your statement in the first quoted paragraph but your conclusion in the second is right on. My students are participating in a colleagues research project that requires completing a survey. The web link has one word from the University’s name, same as our city, but it does not include “EDU”. It is a legitimate survey and is the site that hosts all university surveys. 

  That being said I concur that one should never click on unsolicited/unverified links. 

[wwcruisers]

But, when in doubt, let the mods sort it out (hit that 'report button', folks)!

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, sdschwrt said:

As one who is actively rather than remotely involved in higher education I must take issue with your statement in the first quoted paragraph but your conclusion in the second is right on. My students are participating in a colleagues research project that requires completing a survey. The web link has one word from the University’s name, same as our city, but it does not include “EDU”. It is a legitimate survey and is the site that hosts all university surveys. 

  That being said I concur that one should never click on unsolicited/unverified links. 

Of course, there may be legitimate foundation, government, NGO et al. university auxiliaries or partners sponsoring a campus research endeavor and, thus, providing survey mechanisms housed in other than an ".EDU" environment.

Nonetheless, the absence of .EDU in a link mentioning a higher ed STUDENT project remains a clear "red flag" indicator that something may be very much AMISS. Add to that a seemingly casual request by a purported graduate student unscientifically posed to CC forum participants only serves to wave that "red flag" more vigorously.

[newport dave]

British universities don't end with a .edu.  They are .ac.uk, so they are also legitimate.

[lenquixote66]

10 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Of course, there may be legitimate foundation, government, NGO et al. university auxiliaries or partners sponsoring a campus research endeavor and, thus, providing survey mechanisms housed in other than an ".EDU" environment.

Nonetheless, the absence of .EDU in a link mentioning a higher ed STUDENT project remains a clear "red flag" indicator that something may be very much AMISS. Add to that a seemingly casual request by a purported graduate student unscientifically posed to CC forum participants only serves to wave that "red flag" more vigorously.

You might find the following interesting. More than 50 years ago when I was in College in Brooklyn I took a Sociology course and went to the very first mall to open in Brooklyn to hand out questionaires to as many people as I could find and wrote a paper based on the results. I asked that either they complete the questionaire while they were in the mall or to mail it to the college. They had to list their names and phone numbers . I got responses from 278 people.At that time there was a concern about privacy. I received a grade of A on the paper.

[Flatbush Flyer]

18 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

You might find the following interesting. More than 50 years ago when I was in College in Brooklyn I took a Sociology course and went to the very first mall to open in Brooklyn to hand out questionaires to as many people as I could find and wrote a paper based on the results. I asked that either they complete the questionaire while they were in the mall or to mail it to the college. They had to list their names and phone numbers . I got responses from 278 people.At that time there was a concern about privacy. I received a grade of A on the paper.

With the assumption that you were an undergraduate and (as you noted about privacy) methodology may have been lax in what was probably a "lower division" class, remember that our "one and done" survey poster stated s/he was a "graduate" student.

i can just imagine what a thesis advisor would say when a candidate for an advanced degree described the data collection would be limited to self-selecting "chat room" participants.

 

However, maybe "A study of the attitudes of self-selecting chat room participants on unspecified cruise related behaviors" could become a seminal work in the field of "Cliff Clavinism" and winner of the famed Ig Nobel Award. 😜

 

[Flatbush Flyer]

2 hours ago, newport dave said:

British universities don't end with a .edu.  They are .ac.uk, so they are also legitimate.

Yes. But, they also mispronounce words like "schedule." 😉👨‍🎓👩‍🎓

[newport dave]

22 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Yes. But, they also mispronounce words like "schedule." 😉👨‍🎓👩‍🎓

Yes you do, very annoying for us over in the UK when the colonials mispronounce English words... 

[Husky61]

26 minutes ago, newport dave said:

Yes you do, very annoying for us over in the UK when the colonials mispronounce English words... 

Colonials???😁

[Flatbush Flyer]

11 minutes ago, Husky61 said:

Colonials???😁

Give them a break. Right now the U.K. seems to be all confused - something called "Brexit?"

🇺🇸🇬🇧 Hmmmm? England- the 51st state???👀

[newport dave]

Just now, Flatbush Flyer said:

Give them a break. Right now the U.K. seems to be all confused - something called "Brexit?"

🇺🇸🇬🇧 Hmmmm? England- the 51st state???👀

We're not confused at all.  Unfortunately, the idiots in charge are.......

[iancal]

We don't do surveys.  Mail, on line, phone, or otherwise.

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, newport dave said:

We're not confused at all.  Unfortunately, the idiots in charge are.......

We've got some idiots too!

[AL3XCruise]

13 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Of course, there may be legitimate foundation, government, NGO et al. university auxiliaries or partners sponsoring a campus research endeavor and, thus, providing survey mechanisms housed in other than an ".EDU" environment.

Nonetheless, the absence of .EDU in a link mentioning a higher ed STUDENT project remains a clear "red flag" indicator that something may be very much AMISS. Add to that a seemingly casual request by a purported graduate student unscientifically posed to CC forum participants only serves to wave that "red flag" more vigorously.

 

I know your effort here is to protect people, which I support 100%.  However, I think your assumptions may be a bit broad.  I did not see the original post, so there may have been other red flags, but these are my thoughts.

 

First, many universities use survey websites and statistical packages that reside on the company's domain, not the university.  In addition, depending on the scope of the project and how the university operates, students may choose or be required to use a third party service.  So rather than dismissing a .com or .net address, I'd suggest checking that the domain corresponds to a reputable survey or statistical firm.

 

Second, depending on the project scope, there are lots of unscientific studies.  For a single class project it is often not practical or cost effective to collect proper data, and in many cases it doesn't matter.  An MBA candidate taking a statistics course is being taught how to manipulate and interpret data; the actual findings don't go beyond the course.  If the purpose of collection is a thesis or a research project with broader applications, your point becomes much more relevant.  But that is less common.

 

I think we can all agree that 1) awareness is important and everyone should be cautious, 2) people have the right to completely ignore surveys for any reason, and 3) CC has the right to limit solicitation on this website no matter its form or purpose.  I would never encourage someone to take a chance on a potentially harmful link.  But if someone really wants to try and I help, I think your points may be more appropriately termed "yellow flags" worthy of further investigation.

[jocap]

I didn't see this particular survey, but I have answered them on a UK forum, where they were supposed to be from the travel department at Southampton University, At times the student has returned with her results.

[Bizmark'sMom]

I had to conduct surveys as part of my master's program. The point wasn't to gather hard data for my thesis. It was to learn how to structure survey questions, and then how to interpret and manipulate the results.

 

I inflicted those surveys on the the friends inhabiting my Facebook feed. Not on random strangers in an online forum.

[lifes-a-beach]

This should have been titled, “Warning about this boring thread”.

[lenquixote66]

3 minutes ago, lifes-a-beach said:

This should have been titled, “Warning about this boring thread”.

What is boring to one is not necessarily boring to all.

[sfaaa]

4 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

What is boring to one is not necessarily boring to all.

 

4 hours ago, lifes-a-beach said:

This should have been titled, “Warning about this boring thread”.

Clearly need a survey to determine who got this right.