Anonymising means that nobody can identify a person or organisation any more, not even by putting details together. Replacing names with codes or pseudonyms is pseudonymisation: it is often exactly what your supervisor or research ethics committee asks for, but it is not yet anonymity. This page explains the difference, what to check in your dissertation or final year project, and how to handle it before you submit.
Pseudonymisation replaces whatever identifies someone directly, such as a name, with a code (P1, P2) or an invented name. As long as a key links the code to the person, or someone can work out who it is from the rest of your text, the data are still personal data and the GDPR still applies.
Anonymous data cannot reasonably be traced back to a person. Getting there means removing combinations as well as names. "A clinical nurse manager in the emergency department of a hospital in Limerick, in post for twenty years" contains no name, but it probably describes exactly one person.
So describe what you actually did. "Participants were pseudonymised" is accurate and easy to defend. "The data are fully anonymous" is only true if nobody, including your placement provider or your own participants, could still recognise anyone.
A fictional example of a commentYour conclusion says the measure works, but your interviews mainly show how staff experience it. Could you limit the conclusion to what your data can show?
Upload your PDF and the free preview shows you a first comment on part of your text, no account needed. You only pay if you want the full review.
Try the free previewSay you interview twelve staff at a nursing home and give each one a code. In your findings you write: "The two night nurses (P4 and P9) feel unsupported by management." Only two people work nights. The codes do not protect them: management reads your dissertation and knows who said it.
A supervisor would ask: do you need the role for your analysis? Could night staff be grouped with other shifts, or the quote given without the job title? This example is fictional and only shows how a small group makes someone identifiable.
That depends on your research and on what you agreed. Check your consent form and participant information sheet for what you promised: anonymity, confidentiality, or pseudonymisation only. What you wrote there has to match what your dissertation says.
Check your module handbook, and ask your supervisor, whether your project needed approval from a research ethics committee and what conditions came with it. If you worked with data from a placement or an organisation, look again at what you agreed about names, figures and publication. Some dissertations end up in an open repository at the university or college; ask whether that applies to yours.
This page explains anonymisation and pseudonymisation in general terms. It is not legal advice. If you are unsure about the GDPR and your data, ask your institution's data protection officer.
Anonymising is not only for the final version. Before you send a chapter to a classmate, a proofreader or an online service, Esmond included, take out anything that identifies someone. Keep the key between codes and names separately, and never put it in an appendix.
No. A code is pseudonymisation. As long as a key exists, or someone can recognise the person from their role, team or a quote, it is still personal data. Pseudonymisation is often exactly what is asked for; just call it that.
That depends on what you agreed with the organisation and what your programme expects. Check with your supervisor and your placement supervisor. If you remove the name, check your acknowledgements, appendices and reference list as well.
Check your consent form and your module handbook to see whether that is allowed and in what form. If you include them, remove names, places and identifying details first, just as in the main text.
No. Esmond does not change your text or your PDF and does not remove names. Anonymise it yourself before you upload.
Esmond does not anonymise anything and does not change your document. It evaluates the content of your dissertation or final year project: your argument, your method and your use of sources, passage by passage, with what a supervisor or examiner might question. Whether your data are anonymised well enough is for you to check, with your supervisor.
Esmond evaluates your work and writes nothing for you. A review costs from €3.99, with a free preview first. The price depends on the length of your document and you see it before you pay. No subscription, no account.
You get a free preview first. You only pay if you want the full review.