Think your lab is happy? ASK THEM!!

ANONYMOUS LAB SURVEY

(inspired by and adapted from the original survey from Vanessa Ruta)

https://forms.gle/haoovKFz1XPUWbD56

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Anonymous Lab Survey - Public **IMPORTANT** PLEASE COPY THIS

SURVEY TO YOUR GOOGLE DRIVE BEFORE YOU USE IT - SEE

INSTRUCTIONS BELOW

This is an anonymous survey to capture candid feedback on the climate, organization, and

science in a scientific laboratory. It is meant to be distributed to all members of the laboratory,

including permanent staff, students, postdocs, interns, summer students, and technicians. Not all

questions will apply to all participants. The goal is to identify issues in the lab that the lab head

can work with members to address to improve lab culture. All answers are anonymous and will be

aggregated to form a basis for frank discussions about addressing issues.

HOW TO USE THIS SURVEY

1- Follow link below to make a copy of this survey so that it lives on your Google Drive with YOU

as the owner:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LZ7zEf-M5u79Uqih46rhKF9plmjlF7nNCO82Wmo25M8/copy

2- Edit your copy of the survey to customize it for your lab

3- Send the link to everyone in your lab, including students, postdocs, and permanent staff

4- To keep the survey anonymous, do NOT collect email addresses of respondents, and do not

let respondents see the results (check the settings to unclick the relevant boxes)

5- Collect the answers, aggregate them anonymously, and share the survey results with the lab.

Unless there is something very sensitive that should not be shared, do not redact or edit the

answers before sharing with the lab.

6- You can make a "word cloud" of the first required question to get a picture of what people think

of the lab. There are a number of free Word Cloud generators out on the web

7- Schedule a meeting to have a frank discussion about the lab climate, its strengths and

weaknesses

8-Remember that lab members trust you to treat all of the results as anonymous, aggregated

information and that you will at no point attempt to attribute any comments to a particular lab

member.

9-You will get some tough feedback and discover problems that you never knew existed. I

guarantee that by going through this process and making a good faith effort to address the

issues, you will make your lab a happier and more productive place.

Good luck and let me know if you have any problems with the survey.

Leslie Vosshall

HHMI-The Rockefeller University

leslie@rockefeller.edu

September 2019