public/ParticipantInformation.html
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<title>Participant Information for QUT Research Project</title>
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Participant Information for QUT Research Project</h2>
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–- Questionnaire and Website -–</h4>
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Ecosounds
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QUT Ethics Approval Number 1200000307</h4>
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<h3>
RESEARCH TEAM</h3>
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Principal Researcher: Mark-Cottman Fields, Masters Student, QUT
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<p>
Associate Researcher: Anthony Truskinger, PhD Student, QUT
</p>
<p>
Supervisor: Professor Paul Roe, QUT
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<h3>
DESCRIPTION</h3>
<p>
This project is being undertaken as part of a PhD study for Anthony Truskinger and
a Masters study for Mark Cottman-Fields.
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<p>
The purpose of this research is to investigate ways for interested volunteers to
interact with audio recordings of environmental sounds, with a focus on sounds made
by animals such as bird, frog, and koala calls. The recordings are from areas with
little to no human activity. The two main goals of the research are to provide ecologists
with information about the animals present in the area the sound recordings were
made, and create a website that enables people to listen to and label audio in an
easy and straightforward way.
</p>
<p>
You are invited to participate in this project if you have an interest in the project.
The research team is looking for anyone who is interested in listening to audio
recordings of the natural environment, and willing to indicate interesting sounds
or suggest the name of the animal that made a call. For example, people with bird
watching experience, people who camp or hike regularly, people who enjoy listening
to the sounds of nature, or those who live outside the city.
</p>
<p>
You will need access to a computer, an Internet connection, and some way to listen
to audio, such as speakers or a pair of headphones.
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<h3>
PARTICIPATION</h3>
<p>
Your participation in this project is entirely voluntary. If you do agree to participate,
you can withdraw from the project without comment or penalty. Any personally identifiable
information already obtained from you will be destroyed. However, other contributed
data will be made anonymous and kept. Your decision to participate (or not), will
in no way impact upon your current or future relationship with QUT.
</p>
<p>
<strong>To participate</strong>, complete and submit a questionnaire (on the website),
or create an account on the website.
</p>
<p>
<strong>You can withdraw</strong> by not submitting a questionnaire. You can stop
and discard an incomplete or complete questionnaire before you submit it. Once a
questionnaire is submitted, it is not possible to withdraw it, as the questionnaire
is anonymous.
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<p>
<strong>You can withdraw</strong> by deleting your account on the website. If you
delete your account, information you have entered in your personal profile will
be deleted. Other contributions you may have made, such as adding tags, will be
made anonymous and kept.
</p>
<p>
Participation will involve interaction with a number of web pages and completing
questionnaires about your experience with these web pages. Each web page is designed
in a slightly different way to investigate the most effective way to collect data
and help the environment. Some of these web pages will be more like a traditional
question/answer survey (some with Likert Scales – e.g. strongly agree to strongly
disagree and some short answer questions).
</p>
<p>
These web pages involve completing tasks that will take varying amounts of time.
However each task is designed to be small (no more than a minute) and you can choose
to stop participating at any time.
</p>
<p>
The tasks will include activities like listening to audio on a web page, and pressing
a button to indicate an interesting sound. Other input may include suggestions for
the animal that made the sound. Tasks may show a visualisation of recorded audio.
An example activity might be drawing a rectangle around a part of the visualisation
to indicate an area of interest (an interesting sound you might be hearing in the
recorded audio).
</p>
<p>
The questionnaires will include questions about the user interfaces, your reaction
to them, and experience with them. For example “Did you understand the tasks you
were asked to complete?” and “Did the visualisation accurately represent the sound
you heard?”
</p>
<p>
Your participation in this project may include content created by other participants
on the website. This might occur through viewing the history of another participant’s
activity on the website, or as part of a list of suggested tags. The website may
include competitive elements, such as a display of participants ranked by the amount
of work each has completed up to that point in time.
</p>
<p>
If you agree to participate you do not have to answer any question(s) or complete
any task(s) that you are uncomfortable with.
</p>
<h3>
EXPECTED BENEFITS</h3>
<p>
It is expected that this project will not directly benefit you. However, it may
benefit you in that you may learn to recognise a range of animal calls as well as
exposing you to other people interested in the environment and listening to animal
calls. As part of this project you may receive training in identifying particular
calls. This would take the form of informative pages on the website that give examples
of different species, or tips on how to associate spectrograms (visualisations of
audio) with underlying audio. When you complete a task, you may receive feedback
on your performance in that task. This feedback will be calculated based on data
collected by other participants on the website. Again, the feedback is provided
so that you may know when you have correctly identified an animal call. In this
way we hope you will be able to apply this knowledge for other recreational activities.
</p>
<p>
This project aims to benefit environmental research, particularly research into
animal populations. This can include studies of changes in particular environmental
regions and evaluations of proposed development works on the environment. In this
way any participation on your behalf will go towards understanding the environment.
</p>
<h3>
RISKS</h3>
<p>
There are no risks beyond normal day-to-day living associated with your participation
in this project.
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<h3>
PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY</h3>
<p>
All comments, responses, and personally identifiable user contributed data will
be treated confidentially. The actions that you perform to complete tasks on the
website may be monitored, such as the buttons you click and the identifier of the
recorded audio that is loaded. This monitoring may include any personally identifiable
information. The monitoring is only for evaluating and improving the website, and
will only be available to the research team.
</p>
<p>
Any data collected as part of this project will be stored securely as per QUT’s
management of research data policy.
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<p>
Please note that non-identifiable data collected in this project may be used as
comparative data in future projects.
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<h3>
CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE</h3>
<p>
There are two main ways for you to confirm your consent to participate in this project.
</p>
<p>
Signing up and creating an account on the website, or clicking ‘I Accept’ or ‘Submit’
button at the bottom of the online Participation Consent form on the website is
accepted as an indication of your consent to participate in this project.
</p>
<p>
Submitting a completed online questionnaire is accepted as an indication of your
consent to participate in that questionnaire. It does not indicate your consent
to participate in other aspects of the project.
</p>
<p>
If you are involved in a discovery or some other notable event, we may ask you for
permission to publically use your username, real name or both. This is entirely
optional.
</p>
<h3>
QUESTIONS / FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT</h3>
<p>
If have any questions or require any further information please contact one of the
research team members below.</p>
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Mark Cottman-Fields - Masters Student
<br />
Science and Engineering Faculty
<br />
Queensland University of Technology
<br />
3138 9340
<br/>
m.cottman-fields@student.qut.edu.au
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Anthony Truskinger - PhD Student
<br />
Science and Engineering Faculty
<br />
Queensland University of Technology
<br />
3138 9340
<br/>
anthony.truskinger@student.qut.edu.au
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Prof Paul Roe – Supervisor
<br />
Science and Engineering Faculty
<br />
Queensland University of Technology
<br />
<br />
p.roe@qut.edu.au
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<h3>
CONCERNS / COMPLAINTS REGARDING THE CONDUCT OF THE PROJECT</h3>
<p>
QUT is committed to research integrity and the ethical conduct of research projects.
However, if you do have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of
the project you may contact the QUT Research Ethics Unit on 3138 5123 or email <a
href="mailto:ethicscontact@qut.edu.au">ethicscontact@qut.edu.au</a>. The QUT
Research Ethics Unit is not connected with the research project and can facilitate
a resolution to your concern in an impartial manner.
</p>
<p>
Thank you for helping with this research project. Please note the url of this information
sheet for future reference.</p>
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