Participation in this study involves installing a software monitor that logs your activity when working on your daily tasks. The consent form contains additional detail and is repeated here for your convenience:

Participation in this study requires that you install the plug-in for Protégé and use it for a period of one month. The plug-in consists of a software monitoring program that will log information when you create, select, and edit elements as well as the view you are in while doing so. No other data about your activities will be collected by the tool and at no time will the contents of files be logged. When you exit the Protégé environment, you will periodically be prompted to transmit the logged data to a UVic server. You may preview this data before it is sent and can choose not to submit the data at that time.

The following details the amount of time you will need to spend participating in this study. First, you will need to read the consent form and download and install the tool (approx. 15 mins). Periodically, as you exit Protégé, you will be prompted to confirm that you want to send the data to the study server.

Your participation is completely voluntary. No names or other methods of identifying you in reports will be used. The data will be used to improve future tools to support navigation in ontology development environments. It may also be presented in aggregate form in academic papers and presentations. Only trained researchers will be analyzing the data. These researchers are neutral third parties and are not responsible for any evaluation of your work.

In terms of protecting your anonymity, you will be assigned a unique ID so that your identity will only be accessible to the principal researchers. The unique identifiers will be used to aggregate your submissions but will in no way be used to identify you personally. Information gathered from the monitoring process will only ever be reported as an aggregate description, neither you nor your company will be identifiable in the reported results. At no time will anyone be able to identify any of the participants by using any of the reported material. All information disclosed to researchers in this project is confidential. All data will be kept secure and protected at all times in password protected files on a secure server. Study data will be kept for three years. At the end of this time computer data files will be deleted.

As a way to compensate you for any inconvenience related to your participation, you will eligible to receive a $20 iTunes certificate. To claim the gift certificate, simply email Tricia d’Entremont (tdent at uvic dot ca), and you will receive instructions via email. It is important for you to know that it is unethical to provide undue compensation or inducements to research participants and, if you agree to be a participant in this study, this form of compensation to you must not be coercive. If you would otherwise choose not to participate if the compensation were not offered, then you should decline. There are no known or anticipated risks to you by participating in this research.

If you choose, you can withdraw from the study at any time. To withdraw, you can simply remove the plug-in from your plug-ins directory. You may also request to withdraw previously recorded information by contacting Tricia d’Entremont (tdent at uvic dot ca or (250) 472-5777). If you choose to withdraw at any time or to stop logging of data, you will still be eligible for the iTunes certificate.
In addition to being able to contact the researchers, you may verify the ethical approval of this study, or raise any concerns you might have, by contacting the Associate Vice-President, Research at the University of Victoria by telephone: 250-472-4362 or by email ovphre at uvic dot ca.

Please be advised that information about you that is gathered for this research study in anonymized, aggregate form will be shared with the sponsor of this research and this sponsor is located within the United States. As such, there is a possibility that information abut you may be accessed without your knowledge or consent by the U.S. government in compliance with the U.S. Patriot Act.