Attractiveness and quality of a medium-sized higher education city (Kevola) - Seinäjoki

31.1.2024

Scientific research

EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU 2016/679), Articles 12-14

1. Name, nature and duration of the study

Study name: Attractiveness and quality factors of a medium-sized higher education city (Kevola)

Type of study: One-time study

Duration of the study: 1.12.2022-31.12.2024

Processing time of personal data: 1.2.2024-31.12.2026

2. Data Controller

Tampere Unversity Foundation sr

33014 TampereUniversity

Kalevantie 4, 33100 Tampere

Business ID 2844561-8

Data Protection Officer of the Tampere University dpo [at] tuni.fi (dpo[at]tuni[dot]fi)

3. Principal investigator or research group

Name: Heli Kurikka / Regional and Urban Development Research Group Sente

Address: Seinäjoki University Consortium / Tampere University, Kampusranta 9 C, 60320 Seinäjoki

Tel: +358 50 3187521

Email Address: heli.kurikka [at] tuni.fi (heli[dot]kurikka[at]tuni[dot]fi)

4. Researchers

Heli Kurikka, Jari Kolehmainen (or any other members of the research group) / Regional and Urban Development Research Group Sente / Faculty of Management and Business / Tampere University

Ari Hynynen &; Tanja Kuusela / Seinäjoki City Laboratory / Faculty of Built Environment / Uni Tampere University

5. Content of research records

The research register consists of data collected using three different data collection methods, which are not combined with each other:

1. An anonymous online survey (if necessary, an alternative paper form) about the attraction and quality factors of the city of Seinäjoki. The target group consists of students and staff of universities operating in the Seinäjoki University Consortium and students and staff of Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences. The survey contains the following types of personal data: the respondent's background information (sex, year of birth, nationality, children/no children,  place of residence and its change), field of study and its selection criteria or the nature of the workplace and its selection criteria, own criteria for a good university city, criteria concerning place of residence / city of study, assessment of the quality factors of the City of Seinäjoki, social groups important to answerer, future work and residence plans, and Seinäjoki development proposals. The survey is distributed through partners, so research conductors do not need an own email address book for distribution. The resulting survey data register is in Excel format.
2. Anonymous survey data will be carried out as a Maptionnaire survey. Members of the Seinäjoki higher education community place quality factors of the city on a digital map. The survey includes the respondent's background information (sex, year of birth, nationality, children/no children) as well as quality factors (negative / positive) in Seinäjoki that are considered important on various themes: the external appearance of the environment, the social atmosphere, the experience of the environment and the opportunities offered by the place. In addition, places that the respondents consider important and places to avoid, as well as comments and development suggestions related to the places. The survey data register will be a Maptionnaire spatial data set.
3. 1-2 group interviews are conducted for members of the Seinäjoki higher education community, in which the results of the first survey and the Maptionnaire survey are interpreted and "scenes" social reference groups connected to places are also discussed. The conversations are recorded and transcribed to create anonymous textual material.
4. Email register for survey respondents who wish to participate in group interviews or prize draws. The register contains an email address and information on willingness to participate in a raffle and/or group interview, and the information is stored separately from the research content.

6. Sources of personal data

The research performer collects the information mentioned in section 5 by means of surveys and group interviews. Concerning the marketing of surveys, contacts with respondent groups take place through higher education institutions and related partners, so contacts with respondents do not create separate contact register for the research performer.

7. Purpose of processing personal data

The purpose of processing personal data is scientific research. The purpose of the study is to find out what different factors or combinations of factors the attractiveness of Seinäjoki as a higher education city is based on and how it could be developed. In addition, we want to examine what kind of city’s quality factors have an impact on the residential decisions or enjoyment of experts and students.

8. Lawful basis for processing personal data

The lawful basis for the processing of personal The lawful basis for processing is the EU General Data Protection Regulation Article 6 Para-graph 1 and the Data Protection Act (1050/2018) 4 §:   Task carried out in the public interest/exercise of official authority vested in the controller, in this case scientific research.

9. Sensitive personal data

The study does not process sensitive personal data referred to in Article 9 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, processing of biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a person, data concerning health, sexual behaviour or orientation of a natural person)

10. Transfer of personal data

Personal data will not be transferred outside the research group or outside the EU/EEA.

11. Data protection principles

All data is protected with multi-factor user authentication (MFA) (information systems and devices) of the Tampere University. If paper questionnaire responses are received, they will be transferred without delay in the same electronic database as the other responses by the research provider and the originals will be immediately disposed of as security paper waste.

Direct identification processing: Survey data does not contain direct identifiers. The email addresses submitted by the respondents for the prize draw and group interviews to show interest will be kept separate from the material and will only be used and stored for the purposes mentioned above.

Data protection in data transfers: The Tampere University’s LimeSurvey tool and the Maptionnaire map survey tool are used to collect survey data, from whose secure databases the data is downloaded directly to the researchers' computer, either in the physical university network or using a VPN connection.

12. Processing of personal data after the end of the study

Email addresses received for the purpose of the draw and invitation to group interviews will be deleted immediately after the draw has been completed and the group interviews have been held.

The research data, which has never contained direct identifying information, will be archived in the OneDrive folder of the principal investigator of Tampere University until 31.12.2026, because any scientific publications to be published are unlikely to be ready by the end of the project at the end of 2024. After that, only summaries of the data are stored, from which individual respondents cannot be separated. However, quotations from individual responses from which the respondent cannot be identified and combined with other information related to the respondent may be retained and used.

13. Rights of the data subject and possible restriction thereof

• Data subjects have the following rights under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
• Right of access
  • Data subjects are entitled to find out what information the University holds about them or to receive confirmation that their personal data is not processed by the University.

• Right to rectification
  • Data subjects have the right to have any incorrect, inaccurate or incomplete personal details held by the University revised or supplemented without undue delay. In addition, data subjects are entitled to have any unnecessary personal data deleted from the University’s systems.

• Right to erasure
  • In exceptional circumstances, data subjects have the right to have their personal data erased from the Data Controller’s records (‘right to be forgotten’).

• Right to restrict processing:
  • In certain circumstances, data subjects have the right to request the University to restrict processing their personal data until the accuracy of their data, or the basis for processing their data, has been appropriately reviewed and potentially revised or supplemented.

• Right to object
  • In certain circumstances, data subjects may at any time object to the processing of their personal data for compelling personal reasons.

• Right to data portability
  • Data subjects have the right to obtain a copy of the personal data that they have submitted to the University in a commonly used, machine-readable format and transfer the data to another Data Controller.

• Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority
  • Data subjects have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in their permanent place of residence or place of work, if they consider the processing of their personal data to violate the provisions of the GDPR (EU 2016/679). In addition, data subjects may follow other administrative procedures to appeal against a decision made by a supervisory authority or seek a judicial remedy.

Contact information:

Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman

Street address: Lintulahdenkuja 4, 00530 Helsinki, Finland

Postal address: PO Box 800, FI-00531 Helsinki, Finland

Switchboard: tel. +358 29 56 66700

Fax: +358 29 56 66735

Email address: tietosuoja [at] om.fi (tietosuoja[at]om[dot]fi)

The Data Controller follows a GDPR-compliant procedure for responding to subject access requests.