UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
HUMAN SUBJECTS INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD
Informed Consent
Study title: Lemur Query Log Project
Introduction to the study: I, W. Bruce Croft, am inviting you to provide data for the construction of a query log click-through database to be used by the research community. The data will be collected via the Lemur Project Query Log Toolbar (http://www.lemurproject.org/querylogtoolbar). The data to be collected will include queries issued to the major search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo), results pages returned, click-through data on results, dwell times (time spent viewing a page), and text copy events (selecting a piece of text from a page and copying it to your clipboard). The resultant database will be made available to researchers within the information retrieval community.
What will happen during the study: This is what will happen during the study (which will take place at your computer). I will ask you to install the Lemur Query Log Toolbar for either Internet Explorer or Firefox (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=161383&package_id=281565) web browser, configure it with the URL of the UMass Amherst Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval upload server where the data will be collected, and to then upload your log files at least once per week for a period of up to six months. The toolbar is configured to automatically upload the log files on a weekly basis. Each time you upload your log files, you will be able to review and filter your files before submitting them. There is no compensation for participation in the study.
Who
to go to with questions: If
you have any questions or concerns about being in this study you
should contact Jean Joyce, Center for Intelligent Information
Retrieval Administrative Director, at lemurstudy@ciir.cs.umass.edu or via phone at 413-545-0463.
How participants’ privacy is protected: I will make every effort to protect your privacy. I will not collect your name. I will not use your computer’s IP address in any of my research reports. All of the privacy filters available in the Query Log Toolbar may be enabled by you, including generating a random session id for each log upload so that you will remain anonymous. During installation of the Lemur Toolbar, you will be presented with a screen explaining the project, the risks involved, your rights, and how to participate and how to choose the data that you want to be collected during this project. If you do not agree to participate, your data will not be collected.
Risks and discomforts: I do not know of any personal risk or discomfort from being in this study. I do not know of any way you will personally benefit from participating in this study. The study will provide the information retrieval research community with a freely available query log database, enabling controlled experimentation.
Your rights: You should decide on your own whether or not you want to be in this study. You will not be treated any differently if you decide not to be in the study. If you do decide to be in the study, you have the right to tell me you do not want to continue with the study and stop being in the study at any time. You can disable server access of your Toolbar query logs at any time during the study.
Review Board approval: The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at University of Massachusetts Amherst has approved this study. If you have any concerns about your rights as a participant in this study you may contact the Human Research Protection Office via email (humansubjects@ora.umass.edu); telephone (413-545-3428); or mail (Office of Research Affairs, 108 Research Administration Building, University of Massachusetts, 70 Butterfield Terrace, Amherst, MA 01003-9242).