California University of Pennsylvania
Institutional Review Board: INFORMATION LETTER OF CONSENT
Title of Project: Validating Student Identities to Promote Academic Integrity in Distance Learning Classes
This study is being conducted by the primary researcher, Adnan A. Chawdhry, an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Business and Economics at California University of Pennsylvania. I am conducting a research to better understand validating student identities in online distance education and method we can improve academic integrity in this environment. We are interested in your views on aspects surrounding this topic. I am asking for your participation in the study, which is completely voluntary.
If you decide to volunteer, you will be asked to complete an online survey. By completing this survey, you will provide consent to participate in this study. In order to complete this study, you must be 18 years of age or older. The survey will ask general background questions about demographics and online behavior. Should this pose a problem, please contact Adnan A. Chawdhry to make arrangements to provide you with a paper-based version of the questionnaire. Your participation in the study should take no longer than five minutes. Participation in this study is voluntary. You may decline to answer any questions that you do not wish to answer and you can withdraw your participation at any time by not submitting your responses. Your participation in this study or lack thereof will neither help nor hinder your grade in any of your classes. There are minimal risks from participating in this study.
It is important for you to know that any information that you provide will be confidential. All of the data will be summarized and no individual could be identified from these summarized results. Furthermore, the web site is programmed to collect responses on the survey. That is, the site (surveymonkeys.com) will not collect any information that could potentially identify you (such as machine identifiers), which will ensure that the results are completely anonymous.
The data collected from this study will be accessed only by the researcher named above and will be maintained on a password-protected computer database in a restricted access area. In Addition, the data will be electronically archived after completion of the study and maintained for two years after the research study has been completed.
Should you have any questions about the study, please contact me, Adnan A. Chawdhry, via email at Chawdhry_a@calu.edu or via telephone (724 263-4299). Further, if you would like to receive a copy of the results of this study, please contact me.
I would like to assure you that this study has been approved and received ethics clearance by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board. This approval is effective 03/27/14 and expires 03/26/15. However, the final decision about participation is yours.
By completing this survey, you are giving your consent to use your responses in this study and any future study that is conducted by this researcher.
Thank you for considering participation in this study.
Adnan A. Chawdhry