Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What makes the Defense Industry Benchmark survey different from other ethics surveys?
Q: What is the Ethics Resource Center?
Q: How much does the survey cost?
Q: Will the survey agreement be between my organization and the DII?
Q: Who should I contact if I have questions or if I am interested in the DIB?
Q: What does an organization have to do to prepare to participate in the DIB?
Q: Can I add new questions or reword questions already in the "core" set?
Q: What is pre-population? Can we pre-populate demographic data?
Q: I have heard about a voluntary support study. Will this be included in the DIB survey?
Q: How long does the survey take to complete?
Q: Can the survey be administered in different languages? How much does survey translation and multiple-language hosting cost?
Q: Not all of my employees have email/Internet access. Can the survey be administered on paper as well? How much does paper surveying cost?
Q: How many employees should my organization survey? Does it cost more to survey more employees?
Q: Do employees have to complete the survey in one sitting?
Q: How long should the survey be open?
Q: How often will I get information about how my survey is progressing?
Q: What security considerations does ERC have in place?
Q: What does ERC do with the data when the survey is complete?
Q: How will data from my company's survey be stored?
Q: Will the data from my organization's survey be made public or be traceable to my organization?
Q: What information will my company have access to?
Q: What steps does ERC take to protect employee confidentiality?
Q: Why does ERC have to own the raw data?
Q: What makes the Defense Industry Benchmark survey different from other ethics surveys?
A: The DIB was initiated by the Defense Industry Initiative and is conducted by Ethics Resource Center, an expert in ethics and compliance issues and surveys. The DIB is unique because it allows participants to benchmark to their industry peers as well as the most comprehensive national averages on the same metrics.
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Q: What is the Ethics Resource Center?
A: Founded in 1922, the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) is America's oldest non-profit organization devoted to the advancement of high ethical standards and practices in public and private institutions. For 85 years, ERC has been a resource for institutions committed to a strong ethics culture. ERC's expertise also informs the public dialogue on ethics and ethical behavior. The organization analyzes current and emerging issues and produces new ideas and benchmarks that matter — for the public trust. To learn more about ERC, please visit our website: www.ethics.org.
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Q: How much does the survey cost?
A: For pricing information, please contact Nick Fetzer, Project Coordinator, at (202) 872-4760 or at Nick@ethics.org.
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Q: Will the survey agreement be between my organization and the DII?
A: No. Each participating organization has an individual contractual relationship with the Ethics Resource Center.
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Q: Who should I contact if I have questions or if I am interested in the DIB?
A: You may visit our website at www.ethics.org/DIB. Additionally, ERC will host two informational webcasts on the DIB survey process. If you are interested in participating in these webcasts or have any other questions, please contact Nick Fetzer, Project Coordinator, at (202) 872-4760 or Nick@ethics.org.
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Q: What does an organization have to do to prepare to participate in the DIB?
A: Companies should contact ERC if they are interested in participating in the DIB. Prior to the survey launch, each participating company will be asked to: review the question set and determine if customization is desired; gather a roster of employees; and distribute a communications piece to employees, so they know about the upcoming DIB survey. ERC staff is available to guide each company throughout the process, including these three steps.
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Q: Can I add new questions or reword questions already in the "core" set?
A: Yes, to some extent. ERC allows a certain amount of customization, including as adding questions or tailoring language. However, modifying the DIB question set could limit the amount and type of analysis and benchmarking available to you after the survey. ERC researchers will work with each participating DIB company to determine what modifications or additions to the core question set are necessary and appropriate.
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Q: What is pre-population? Can we pre-populate demographic data?
A: Pre-population is the process of submitting to ERC the demographic data of the employees who compose the survey sample. Pre-population brings the advantage of a shorter survey, as ERC has no need to ask demographics questions if that data is provided by the company beforehand.
Yes! ERC can pre-populate demographic data for your survey roster, provided that we receive it far enough in advance.
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Q: I have heard about a voluntary support study. Will this be included in the DIB survey?
A: This supplemental survey is not a part of the core DIB question set. The voluntary support survey is intended to explore the nature of supervisory support and its effect on ethical culture and to provide participating companies with additional insight on supervisory relationships in their company. If you decide to participate in the support survey, ERC will add a follow-on set of questions to a subset of your employees' surveys. The support study comes with an additional cost. For more information, please contact Nick Fetzer, Project Coordinator, at (202) 872-4760, or at Nick@ethics.org.
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Q: How long does the survey take to complete?
A: In one sitting, online surveys typically take approximately 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Much of this depends on both the length of the question set and how a participant chooses to answer because specific questions have answer choices that may skip a participant forward in the survey.
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Q: Can the survey be administered in different languages? How much does survey translation and multiple-language hosting cost?
A: The survey can be administered in multiple languages. For more information on translation fees, please register to gain access to the members-only portion of our website, or contact Nick Fetzer.
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Q: Not all of my employees have email/Internet access. Can the survey be administered on paper as well? How much does paper surveying cost?
A: Because it is important to include the perspectives of employees of all types and levels, we encourage companies to make accommodations for those employees who do not have email/Internet access. Paper surveys will be billed at the flat rate of $9.00 per survey mailed, assuming ERC handles all printing, mailing, and scanning. If your company coordinates and directly pays for the printing and initial mailing of the surveys, the cost will be reduced to $7.00 per survey returned to ERC. The $7.00 cost covers business reply mail expenses, scanning and transcription fees, and related administrative costs.
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Q: How many employees should my organization survey? Does it cost more to survey more employees?
A: ERC will work with you to decide whether a sample or census survey is more appropriate for your company's size and which will meet the intended goals of the survey process, then we will determine the needed survey population size based on expected response rates. Up to 25,000 employees can be surveyed at no additional cost.
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Q: Do employees have to complete the survey in one sitting?
A: No, a participant does not have to complete the online survey in one sitting. If at any time a participant needs to exit the survey, he or she may do so by closing the internet browser window. To revisit the survey at a later time, the participant must go to the survey invitation letter received via e-mail and click on or type in the unique URL provided.
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Q: How long should the survey be open?
A: Online surveys are typically open from 2 to 4 weeks. This time frame can be adjusted slightly depending on the progress of the survey, national holidays, and other relevant circumstances.
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Q: How often will I get information about how my survey is progressing?
A: Each week that the survey is underway, ERC will send you a progress report via Excel file. The progress report includes completion rates, response rates, and other relevant information.
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Q: What security considerations does ERC have in place?
A: Ethics Resource Center (ERC) has contracted to provide a safe and secure platform to host online survey. In order to provide enhanced reliability and security, this platform utilizes a dedicated infrastructure built upon industry best practices as related to dedicated hosting and data-security.
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Q: What does ERC do with the data when the survey is complete?
A: When the survey is complete, ERC removes all identifiers (usernames and passwords) from its system. We retain a copy of the now-unidentifiable data in our database for the purpose of future research.
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Q: How will data from my company's survey be stored?
A: ERC has contracted to provide a safe and secure platform to store data. The system includes a dedicated infrastructure that is built upon industry best practices as related to dedicated survey hosting and data-security. As a participant answers an online survey, the data is stored onsite in a separate secure area of the data center. All data for ERC online surveys is processed within a dedicated SQL Server 2000 environment.
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Q: Will the data from my organization's survey be made public or be traceable to my organization?
A: Data from each organization participating in the DIB will be included in the DIB Index (or Average). ERC will not identify individual company's results, but your company's participation in the DIB and its inclusion in the DIB Index will be made public to other DII companies and on the Benchmarking Portal. DIB participating organizations are free to share their own results at their discretion.
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Q: What information will my company have access to?
A: In order to protect employee confidentiality, ERC only releases survey data in aggregate form, i.e., we combine individual survey responses with all other responses so that no response can be traced to any individual. To protect potentially-identifiable individuals, ERC does not release aggregated data for groups with fewer than 20 people.
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Q: What steps does ERC take to protect employee confidentiality?
A: First, during the survey process, ERC's guarantee of confidentiality means that, although we know who has been invited to take a survey and we can see who has responded, we do not under any circumstances share that information with the companies we work with. While the online survey is open, we maintain a list of employee email addresses, user names, and pass codes so we can assist employees with help desk issues and to determine which email addresses need to receive reminder letters. Because we keep this list, we tell employees the survey is confidential, not anonymous.
Also, immediately after the survey closes, we permanently delete employee rosters and all unique identifiers from our system. At that point, responses become anonymous, since we no longer have a record of any employees' names, email addresses, usernames, or pass codes.
Finally, ERC owns the raw data and does not release it. We ensure employee confidentiality by only releasing aggregated data. Aggregated data allows you to see the percentage of people who responded in a certain way to a question, but not how any one respondent answered. To protect potentially-identifiable individuals, ERC does not release aggregated data for groups with fewer than 20 people.
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Q: Why does ERC have to own the raw data?
A: ERC is a nonprofit, research organization. We conduct surveys to add to our knowledge-base, allowing us to fulfill our mission. Also, ERC must exclusively own all raw data collected from client surveys in order to protect client confidentiality.
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