This issue will only get worse in coming years. Anonymity is an important requirement in political freedom, on the job and off, and people are more sensitive to it with every passing day. I can't imagine why... Plus, the level of professional skepticism that I've experienced at colleges and universities must make this even more problematic.

Maybe you can get some powers-that-be to create and approve an "online survey privacy policy" which, in plain english, not university obfu, details the realitites and promises of privacy and/or anonymity. This may also include some details of the care and attention given by the committee that designed/supervised the process. Maybe the survey page could contain a "certified by" phrase naming the committee, etc.

Searching for "building trust" on Google yields huge results on this exact issue. Marketers and ecommerce players have been on this issue for while, and it's still being debated.

It must be possible to build enough trust to allow useful surveying to occur, including a reminder that non-participation (a non-representative tally) may result in unpopular decisions being made.

Also, possibly the university could ask it's outside accounting firm to set up the survey on *their* web site, they count it, etc... (Ooops, might not work in light of Enron news ;)

If the university is not satisfied with survey participation, they will need to step up and participate in privacy, usage and security issues, along with other more mundane marketing actions geared to trust building, that the rest of us have long been dealing with. Are they likely to?

Hmm. Thorny. Good luck!