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Are you a woman working in the information technology field?
During this first phase of the study, we hope to locate women
who are willing to be interviewed and for these interviews
to be tape recorded. We anticipate these conversations will
last between 1-1.5 hours. Following the interviews we will
send participants the transcriptions and we will follow-up
with email correspondance to encourage further interest in
and feedback on the research. All in all we anticipate that
participating in this phase of the research project will take
up about three hours of your time.
In a couple of weeks, we will be contacting you by phone,
emails or in face-to-face discussions to answer any questions
about the study and to determine your willingness to participate.
If you are willing to participate, we will ask that you sign
a consent form, which we will send you prior to the interview
(it will contain information similar to this information letter).
Prior to the interview, we will also send you a list of key
issues and questions we hope to cover in the focus group.
We want your feedback on the effectiveness and appropriat eness
of the topics being explored and if they result in information
useful to our study. We also want to know if there are areas
we have not thought about, but which you believe are important
to consider and will also ask you to suggest other women whom
you think might be interested in participating in the study.
These women will be sent information letters, which will be
followed up with phone calls. There are no known risks of
participating in this research and we hope participants may
find it valuable. At the end of the study we will be providing
a summary of the research findings to all the participants.
All data gathered during the interviews will only be accessible
by the two researchers, Shauna Butterwick and Jen Liptrot,
and by graduate students who we will be hiring to assist us
with the project. These graduate students will be trained
in conducting interviews and about the importance of maintaining
confidentiality. No other individuals will have access to
this data. Pseudonyms will be used to identify participants
and any other individuals or institution and agencies discussed
during the focus groups. We will keep transcripts, tape, and
other data in a secure locked cabinet. At any time during
the research process, participants can decide to withdraw
without any consequences or reprisals. Participants do not
waive any of their legal rights by consenting to participate
in this research.
If you have any questions about this study, please do not
hesitate to contact us. Shauna Butterwick can be reached by
phone at 604-822-3897 and by email at shauna.butterwick@ubc.ca.
For Ontario-based participants, Jen Liptrot can be reached
by phone at 416-599-3590 and by email at jen@actew.org.
If at anytime you have questions about your treatment or rights
as a research subject, you may telephone the Office of Research
Services at the University of British Columbia at 604-822-8598.
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