To submit your Human Subjects Protocol to ORSP, you must do the following:
- Go to http://www.sfsu.edu/~protocol/human.htm and follow the links to the NIH short course on human subjects at the bottom of the page. You must take and pass the course before being eligible to submit or administer a protocol.
- Create a research proposal. Follow the expedited computer science protocol, a 1 - 2 page template.
- Create a questionnaire, survey, or some other mechanism to measure results. Be sure to describe how you are capturing results in your proposal. If a questionnaire, attach it. If you are instead taking measurements, be clear in your protocol about what those measurements are and how they will be used. Here is a sample questionnaire. For guidance on design of usability experiments see PPT slides. Have your advisor aprove this plan.
- Decide how you will recruit participants. If you will use a flyer, include a copy of the flyer. If you will recruit in class, include an email or letter from the professor(s) stating that you have permission to recruit in the class. A sample email might say:
Dear student,
You have permission to come to my class and ask for volunteers to participate in your user trial validating software "x" that you produced during your degree work. I have set aside five minutes for you on <date> to ask for volunteers and provide a brief description of the trial.
Sincerely,
A Professor.
- You are, of course, going to get the subjects to perform certain tasks. Prepare background and task list for participants. All participants must sign consent form. Include a set of representative tasks that the subjects might be asked to do.
- Finally, when you have all this together, download the protocol approval form and fill in the details. Obtain the signatures.
- Put all the documents together and give to CS Office. CS Office will mark the hole package "Expedited CS Procedure" and send to Grad Division.
A guide to the attachments:
 Computer Science Protocol.doc is the sample human subjects protocol used as a template for any protocols you create. One more completed example by our graduate student Vaidehi Mehta is here.
Take a look, next, at the Computer Science Consent.doc , noting in particular the line "completion and return of the survey indicates your consent to the above conditions." This line is very important. It represents implied consent, the normal procedure whereby students consent to participating in the trial.
We have included two documents on clustering digital ink, representing approved protocols where the purpose was to collect data by observing the user and capturing their input.
Suggested Templates for Protocol and Consent:
Overview of usability testing is given in these PPT slides.
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