Proposal for Research with Human Subjects Please complete this form and return it along with a description of your project to the Institutional Review Board chairman. The purpose of the form is to provide members of the IRB with information so as to help them judge the ethical aspects of the project. Some guidelines for your project description are on Page 2. Please submit this form, your project description, and a copy of relevant consent forms, surveys, experimental protocols, or other materials to the IRB chairman. Please note that surveys and other materials should be submittted exactly as they would appear in the research project. The IRB chairman for 1998-99 is Prof. David Lopatto, Box Y-21. Date: 21 July 1999 Name of Researcher(s) (Students, please name your faculty sponsor or course instructor): Rachel Heck, Sarah Luebke; Samuel A. Rebelsky, faculty sponsor Title of the project: Annotation System for the World-Wide Web I. Summary Description of Participants a) Who are the participants? Science summer research students. b) How many participants will be involved? less than 50 c) How will the participants be contacted and recruited? We will send out an email to all the summer science students asking for their help. d) Will the participants be compensated for participating? Yes. How? Cookies and soda. II. Consent, Withdrawal, and Promises to the Participant a) Will the participant (or a proxy) give consent for participation in the project? Yes. b) Who is giving the consent? Participant. c) What information or promises will be made available to the participant? The purpose of the research known in advance (X). The risks and benefits of the research ( ). How to locate the researcher for later comments and questions (X). Assurances that the participant may withdraw during the project (X). Anonymity (X). Confidentiality (X). The results will be furnished to the participant ( ). The participant will be debriefed at the end of his or her participation ( ). Please indicate who should be contacted about the outcome of the IRB review: Sarah Luebke (luebke@grinnell.edu)
The World-Wide Web has transformed the way we share information. Unfortunately it only allows readers (for instance, students) to interact passively, reading and following links. Our project has been designing and implementing an Annotation System for the World-Wide Web that would allow readers to add personal, public or group notes to Web pages.
We will first start our system running on Netscape and have the participant log into it (with an account we set up called "Guest"). They will then be able to browse on the World-Wide Web and add, read and search annotations. We are asking the participants to fill out a survey with two parts: 1) a few general information questions (to gauge computer experience and note-taking practices); 2) questions about their likes and dislikes of the look of the annotation system. The survey questions are included below: