9 A Practical Guide to Ethical Research Involving Humans
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STUDIES OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPER WORK PRACTICESSUBJECT INFORMATION SHEETTraditionally, tools for software maintenance engineers are designed without knowing much about the specific circumstances under which software maintenance engineers work. Our research aims to correct this oversight by studying software maintenance engineers as they go about their daily work. We want to know not
only where you spend your time, but also how you go about solving problems, what sources
of information you consult, how you interact with the software and hardware, and what you find the most enjoyable and the most difficult aspects of your work.
Participants for this project will be selected via their place of employment.
As part of the CSER initiative, certain corporations have agreed to allow us access to their employees. Your employer has specified your group as a possible source of participants in our research. The research will occur in your place of employment.
If you consent
to participate in our research, we will observe you as you go about your work in one 1 hour sessions. You simply do what you would normally do, and we use a computer or paper and pencil to record your actions.
Occasionally, we ask for clarification on a certain procedure, but in general try to be silent observers. Participation in this research project is voluntary. Participants can withdraw their consent to participate and discontinue participation at anytime without any consequences. Your employer will not know whether
or not you have participated, or whether or not you have withdrawn participation. All collected data is strictly confidential, it will not be made available to anyone (including your employer) except as aggregate data. In the case that you maybe
identified in any reports, the researchers will ensure that you consent to the publication. Collected data will only be used by members of this research project as analysis vehicles for understanding the work practices of software maintenance engineers. The data will not be used for any other purpose. All participants can review their own data at any time.
All participants have the right to obtain any publicly available documents that are published about this research. All data collected is stored in a locked office at the National Research Councilor the University of Ottawa.
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