RUTGERS TREC-9 INTERACTIVE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL STUDY

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION AND CONSENT FORM

Thank you for agreeing to participate in the Rutgers Interactive Information Retrieval Study. Your participation will entail the following activities:

1. You will fill out a short questionnaire about your previous experience which should take about 5 minutes.

2. You will receive instructions for using two different full-text, ranked-output information retrieval systems and a description of your tasks in the experiment. You will receive instructions for using each system separately and immediately prior to conducting searches on that system. In total, receiving instructions should take about 30 minutes.

3. You will be asked to answer a total of eight questions using the two systems. The questions will be provided to you and you will be given five minutes to answer each one. The interaction between you and the system will be logged by the system and the computer screen will be videotaped for later analysis.

4. You will be asked to "think aloud" about what you are doing and why you are doing it during your searches. What you say will be recorded on the videotape for later analysis.

5. You will complete an exit questionnaire and exit interview about your searching experiences using the two systems. This should take about ten minutes to complete.

 You will be one of about 36 participants in this study. The results of the searches that you do will be reported, but without any reference to you specifically. The names of all subjects will be held confidential, and all results will be reported anonymously. The analyses of the recordings of your searches and of your comments will be cumulated with those of all of the other subjects for reporting purposes, and when analyzed individually will be done without reference to specific individuals, thus insuring anonymity. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary, and you may at any time decide to discontinue participation in the study.

The data that are collected will be used for this research project and for background data for Ph.D. dissertations by students currently working on this research project. No names will be attached to the search results and logs, and these data will be available only to the researchers on this project. Unless you explicitly agree to allow further use of these data, as described overleaf, they will all remain confidential and will be destroyed on completion of the research project and dissertations.
 
 

I, _______________________________________________________, have read and understood this description of the TREC-9 Interactive Information Retrieval Study and agree to participate in the Study.
 
 

_____________________________________________ __________________________

Signature                                                                    Date


-- PLEASE TURN THE PAGE OVER --

 
 
RUTGERS TREC-9 INTERACTIVE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL STUDY

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION AND CONSENT FORM CONTINUED...

We would like to ask your permission to use the data collected in this investigation for further research, for demonstration in teaching, and for presentation during conferences. If you do not want to give your permission for us to use your data, you may still participate in this study. Use of your data could entail any of the following:

1. Researchers, both at Rutgers and at other institutions, re-analyzing the logs of your searches and the videotapes made of them. Such use would be only on approval of this project director and no approval will be given for the videotapes to be seen by anyone other than the specified researcher(s).

2. Playing the videotapes of searches to students in MLS and PhD classes at Rutgers to demonstrate how such searches are performed.

3. Playing excerpts of the log and/or the videotape of the searches during presentations of the research results of this project at scholarly conferences.

 You should note that the videotape that we make will be only of the monitor screen, but is possible that the back of your head might at times appear on the tape. You should also note that your voice will be recorded on the videotape as you think aloud. If you agree to our making use of the data recorded during your searching activity, please sign this form in the space below. If you do not wish to permit such use, do not sign this form. In this case, the logs and tapes will be treated as previously described.
 
 

I, _______________________________________________________, do hereby agree that the search logs and videotapes made during my participation the Rutgers TREC-9 Interactive Information Retrieval Study may be used for research, teaching, and demonstration purposes as described above.
 
 

 ___________________________________________ __________________________

Signature                                                                 Date
 
 

_____________________________________________ _________________________

Signature of experimenter                                           Date

 
If you have any concerns or require further information, please contact:
Nick Belkin on (732) 932-8585 or via e-mail at nick@belkin.rutgers.edu

If you have any questions about your rights as a research subject, you
may contact: the Sponsored Programs Administrator at Rutgers University,
(732) 445-2799 or via email at ruotolo@orsp.rutgers.edu