Participate in the Lemur Query Log Project

The goal of this project is to create a database of web search activity for use by the information retrieval research community. The data to be collected will consist of search queries submitted from a Web browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) to one of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc); the contents of the results pages returned by the search engine; actions performed in the browser while viewing the results page, including time spent, mouse hover time, text copy events (selecting text and copying to clipboard), and clicks on individual result entries; the same actions will be recorded for individual result entry pages that are loaded into the browser.

The data will be collected via the Lemur Project Query Log Toolbar. Users of the toolbar who consent to participate will be provided with the URL of the upload server for the project. The toolbar provides a number of privacy settings that the user may enable. These include the generation of a random session id for log uploading that helps to prevent aggregate log data from being tied to a single user, and also the blacklisting (denying access) of specific data, such as phone numbers, names, and addresses. Users who consent to participate will have all privacy settings available to them, and may set them accordingly in the toolbar Preferences. Each time you upload your data, you will be able to review and filter your files before submitting them.

The collected data will be stored in a MySQL relational database, hosted by the UMass Amherst Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval. The full database schema is described in http://www.lemurproject.org/querylogtoolbar/docs/server/. Researchers within the information retrieval research community will obtain access to the data via request.

I have had the chance to ask any question I have about this study and my questions have been answered. I have read the information in this consent form and in the informed consent form.