Wednesday, February 6, 2019

(2-6) Additional Help and the IRB

This week, I began filling out an IRB application. IRB stands for Institutional Review Board, and they're responsible for protecting human research subjects. Since the user study tied to this project involves humans, we fall under this category.

To apply, I have to fill out a few forms, and complete a course that will provide me with the necessary training required to preform a clean study.

Additionally, I have to learn how to make effective surveys to be given to participants before and after the test. I've been tasked to study the “System Usability Scale”, and the “Technology Acceptance Module” - two trainings that will help me accomplish this goal.

I also had to learn how to protect the anonymity of my participants. The difficulty arose when my advisor and I had to find a way to link a survey ID to a student - that way we can compare the data from one student before the test, and after. We came to the conclusion I personally would never have anything to do with the handling of this ID - my advisor will. All I will need to deal with is the accounts created by the user on my platform, and linking that account to a TCG account. We decided to worry about dynamically pulling student grade data later, for the teacher can manually issue rewards through the game server.


In terms of the ERIC API, I reached out to my advisor for help, for I came to the conclusion I lacked the knowledge required to understand the API (remote database management, encryption, etc.). After a few meetings, I feel I have enough footing to effectively begin implementing the API. All of the setup is completed, and all I have to do now is add users, and learn to pull the data for a particular user that I need.

No comments:

Post a Comment