NSF Staff and Contractor Data Use Agreement for Individuals

ATTACHMENT 7
National Science Foundation
Division of Science Resources Statistics
INDIVIDUAL DATA USE AGREEMENT FOR NSF STAFF AND CONTRACTORS
Data collected by the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR),
National Survey of Recent College Graduates (NSRCG), and the National Survey of College Graduates
(NSCG) may be used only for the purpose for which they were obtained – statistical analysis and
reporting. Any effort to determine the identity of any respondent or to use the information for any
purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis could violate Confidential Information Protection
and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (CIPSEA), 44 U.S.C. 3501 et. sec.; section 14(i) of the National
Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 1873(i); and/or the Privacy Act of 1974 as
amended, 5 U.S.C. 552a; and The Director of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) is the designated
System Manager for the above mentioned systems of records. SRS has taken every effort to assure that
the confidentiality of the data is carefully protected. Considerable harm could ensue if there were
unauthorized access to or disclosure of identifiable information concerning an individual who responded
to the survey by any user of the data files. Therefore, the undersigned gives the following assurances
with respect to the data files:
(1)

I will not use the data in the file for any purpose other than statistical reporting, analysis,
or other uses as authorized by SRS. Information from the files will be released only in
statistical summaries which do not disclose information about any individual;

(2)

I will not release the data sets or any part of them to any other person or organization,
except as specifically allowed and instructed under fully ratified contracts or license
agreements;

(3)

I will not use the data sets to attempt to learn the identity of, or to gain information
concerning, any person included in the data sets unless the task is directly related to
survey administrative tasks under the SRS contract; and

(4)

If the identity of any person should be discovered inadvertently, I will not make use of
this knowledge and advise the Director, SRS:
(a) of the incident;
(b) how the information about the individual will be safeguarded; and
(c) no one else will be told of the information discovered.

_______________________________
Print Name
_______________________________
Signature
_______________________________
Organization
_____________________________________

Date
NOTE: Data Use Agreements must be renewed annually if access to the confidential data is to be continued. Survey
Contractor’s Staff are exempt from the condition (4) above when the identification is directly involved in the survey
conduct.