User:EpochFail/Research protocol

I am a graduate student at the University of Minnesota in the Computer Science program. I'm researching Wikipedia and other open collaboration systems. In order to understand the effects of my interface modifications on how decisions are made, I may request that those who participated in testing the modification also participate in surveys and interviews. This protocol describes the rules I will follow when interacting with Wikipedia editors and requesting/receiving the responses they provide.

Disclosure and consent
I will always disclose, whenever pertinent, the fact that my activities on Wikipedia include my work as a researcher. This fact will be displayed on my user page and on the documentation pages of any interface modifications I develop for the purpose of research. All of my interaction with Wikipedia editors where I intend to gather data for research will be preceded by an explicit request for consent that includes a reference to my IRB approved consent form and this protocol.

Participation is voluntary
Participation in interviews, surveys, or experimental interfaces is completely voluntary. Subjects in any experiments I run are under no obligation to comply with a request for an interview or survey. Those who do volunteer will be able to change their decision at any time. No details about who did or did not participate in a survey, interview, or experiment will be made public.

Responses are private data
The privacy of research subjects is of crucial importance to me, my colleagues and my institution. Interviews and surveys will take place off-wiki in order to protect the privacy of research subjects. Records of survey and interview responses will be stored on password protected, firewall-ed servers. Only the researchers participating directly in the study and bound by the same rules and restrictions as myself will have access to any stored information. Responses may be published in non-personally-identifiable forms in research papers resulting from this study.

Minimizing risk
I will work to minimize risks to subjects by focusing on topics directly or indirectly related to Wikipedia, encyclopedia-building, and the community. To protect subjects, I will not discuss personally sensitive topics that are unrelated to Wikipedia work. If a participant chooses express any personally sensitive information, I will not include it in my research.