Letter of Consent for Research Project

March 7, 2016

Dear Participant:

I am a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the College of William & Mary. I invite you to participate in a research study entitled “Motivations for Participation in a Open Online Course.” The purpose of this study is to explore people’s motivations for joining and participating in a open online courses. Your involvement in the study is completely voluntary. If you choose not to participate in the study, you are still welcome to participate in the course. You may choose not to participate or to stop at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. If you decide to stop or withdraw from the study, the information/data collected from or about you up to the point of your withdrawal will be kept as part of the study and may continue to be analyzed. Your decision whether or not to participate in this research will not affect your participation in the course.

There are two levels of participation.

Option 1. You may choose to participate by completing two surveys during the course: one at the beginning, and one at the end. Each of these surveys should only take about 5 minutes each to complete. Also included in the study is data related to your general course participation, such as the assignments you submit and the time you spend on course activities. If you choose to participate at this level, your name will be entered in a drawing to win a $100 gift card

Option 2. In order to opt into this option, you must be a K-12 educator in a United States Public School. You may choose to participate in option two by completing all of the activities outlined in option 1 (including two surveys, and general course participation). Option two also involves volunteering to participate in two interviews, one at the beginning of the course, and towards the end of the course. The interviews will last approximately 30-45 minutes and will be audio recorded. The interview questions will focus on your perceptions of online professional development, and your ideas about design thinking. If you choose this option, you will receive a $100 gift card once you have completed the course and the interviews. If more than 40 people choose this option, 40 names will be drawn at random from the list volunteers.

All information collected in this study that can be identified as yours will remain confidential, unless required by law. No individually-identifiable information about you, or provided by you during the research, will be shared with others without your written permission. All research data will be kept on a private drive that only the principal researcher will have access to. Identifying information of participants will be removed from any reports that are seen by anyone other than the principal researcher. The results of the research study may be published, but your name or any identifying information will not be used. In fact, the published results will be presented in summary form only.

Your opinions are highly valued and I hope you feel a sense of satisfaction in knowing you are contributing to an increased understanding of criteria for the design of online courses. The findings from this project may provide information on how to design online courses in such a way as to increase quality without jeopardizing access or increasing costs. There are no known risks or discomforts associated with this research.

If you have any questions about this research project, please feel free to contact me via email at lljohnson@wm.edu. Questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant should be directed to Dr. Tom Ward, (EDRIC-L@wm.edu) (757-221-2358).

By clicking on the “I agree” button you are agreeing to participate in the above described research project.

Thank you for your consideration! Please print a copy of this letter for your records.

Sincerely,

Lindy Johnson