Informed consent

 
Welcome to the PLENK2010 LURKER survey!

Purpose:
The purpose of this survey is to gather information on lurkers in the PLENK2010 Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). In this context, lurking is defined as passive attention, silent participation, and/or self-directed learning. Lurkers are often the vast majority in MOOCs and lurking behavior is thought to be affected by both dispositional and situational issues.

If you can identify with this characterization of your participation in PLENK2010 as passive attention and viewing of either forums, blogs, and twitter posts please continue on with the survey. There will be an opportunity for commenting further on your participation in the course, as lurking/non lurking, on our definition of lurking, as well as any other comments about the course you would like to share. This information will be useful to course facilitators in the planning of subsequent courses and to researchers exploring the use of Personal Learning Environments.

Structure:
The survey contains 7 questions; some allowing only one answer while others have text boxes for written comments. The survey should not take more than 10 minutes to fill out and is completely voluntary.

Ethics:
The National Research Council of Canada and those conducting this project subscribe to an ethical conduct of research and to the protection at all time of the interests, confidentiality and anonymity of participants.

This research project has been approved by the National Research Council Research Ethics Board.

Contact:
If you have any concerns or questions that you would like addressed before completing the survey, please send an e-mail to Hélène Fournier, the lead researcher, at Helene.Fournier@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca, or telephone 506-861-0957.

For questions or concerns about the ethics of this research project, please send an e-mail to Lea Maloney, OREB-CERO@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca, or telephone 613-993-8872.

You MUST be 18 years of age or older to participate in this study. Please click next to continue if you are 18 years of age or older. If not, simply EXIT the survey now.

Thank you!

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