ah well, it wasn’t a long survey anyway.

To whom it may concern:

As you may already know, GRG, a veteran educational research firm, recently pulled a survey that was posted on the educational website sciencecafes.org. The survey was conducted as part of contract with NOVA scienceNOW and had a legitimate intent to improve the site for its frequent users.

When our response rate jumped from 5 to over 13,000 in the span of a few hours, we investigated, as we expected a typical response of 100 to 200. We typed a part of the survey announcement into Google, and learned that anonymous participants had posted our survey link on websites dedicated to coupons, discounts, freebies, etc. and invited an unintended audience to participate. It’s unfortunate that you completed the survey in the few hours during which we were unaware of these inappropriate postings and we are as disappointed as you are that the data for this survey were so severely compromised.

Undoubtedly, given the number of responses, there were survey respondents who sought out the website to learn about science cafés and completed the survey in good faith. However, because it is impossible to determine which respondents provided genuine responses, we have been forced to discard all of the data received, and will be unable to provide gift certificates for any completed surveys. We have consulted our legal counsel who agreed this is the correct course of action.

We regret the inconvenience and will take steps in the future to prevent such an occurrence.