University of Washington
Teacher Consent Form and Terms of Service
A Games Based Learning and Problem Solving Framework
Using Large-Scale Data mining.

 

By registering an account for your class and signing in to play, you acknowledge that:

a) We are recording logs of player decisions and player scores. As you play these games, you are participating in a research study, and it is keeping a record of your decisions and pathways through the games so that we, the games’ creators, researchers at the University of Washington*, can improve the game for future players, as well as see whether our games improve your abilities with in-game tasks over time. Your mouse clicks and key presses are being recorded. This is used to help us determine where players get stuck, so we can identify if it is a problem with the game design or with learning goals. We also use this information to personalize the game experience to each player. Your play log will be added to a massive dataset that shows us trends in player behavior. This data will be kept for 7 years. This logging is similar to the standard practice in the game industry aimed at improving player’s experience.

b) For some games, we will also ask for basic demographic information: Age, Gender, and Education Level.

c) The username you create can also be used in public forums, and your posts there are naturally publically available. We may study the public forum posts to understand how players who interact with each other also engage with our games.

d) Possible risks involve feelings of invasion of privacy and breach of confidentiality. Since we are collecting data based on your playing and asking you agree to these terms and conditions first, you may feel we are invading your privacy.

e) Possible benefits include learning concepts or skills through the game.

f) Aggregated (non-personally identifiable) data will be shared with our collaborators at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who are working with us on this project.

g) Aggregated (non-personally identifiable) data may also be published or shared with the academic community for the purposes of presenting research findings and furthering the advancement of improving games and learning through games. Forum data will be coded and analyzed and will not be linked to your forum profiles.

h) Game administrators reserve the right to disable game accounts at any time.

i) We may contact teachers to take an online survey about your experiences using our games wit your students, which you are free to decline. This will include questions such as “How did you use the games with your students?” or “Which games or parts of games contributed most to student learning?” You will be contacted via the email address you used to register your account. You will never receive spam from us nor will we share your email address with anyone. While your data could be linked to your email address, we will be storing your email address separately in a password-protected database only accessible by a database administrator. Researchers who have access to your data will not be given access to your email address, but it is technically feasible to link the two together if one did have access to both.

j) For teachers: We will also provide you with tools to use to track student progress and to give them personalized settings within the games they play.

If at any time you do not want to participate in our research, simply stop playing and delete your account.

If you have any questions or concerns about the research or game, please feel free to contact us at cgs-feedback@cs.washington.edu or at (425) 312-3363. If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, you may contact a member of UW’s Human Subjects Division at (206) 543-0098 or via email at hsdinfo@uw.edu. Please note that emails are considered insecure and privacy is not guaranteed.

By checking Agree below, you agree that you have read the above terms and give your consent to conduct research on your game playing and your experiences with using the games and teacher tools with your students.

[   ] Agree     [   ] Disagree
username: __________
(Create a username that does not  include identifiable information about you—e.g., birthdate, nickname, etc.)
valid email address: __________
desired password: __________
retype desired password: __________
Approximately how many students do you plan to have play the game(s)? __________

Researchers:
Zoran Popović, Computer Science and Engineering, 206-543-4226, zoran@cs.washington.edu
Christy Ballweber, Computer Science and Engineering, 206-897-1817, christy@cs.washington.edu