You are invited to participate in the online study Influence of Logics in Featured Snippets on Opinion Making initiated and conducted by Markus Bink, Sebastian Schwarz, Tim Draws and Dr. David Elsweiler. The research is supervised by at the University of Regensburg. Please note:

• Your participation is entirely voluntary
• The online study will last approximately 3–4 minutes
• We will record basic personal demographics (age, gender, etc.)
• We may publish our results from this and other sessions in our reports, but all such reports will be confidential and will neither include your name nor cannot be associated with your identity

If you have any questions or complaints about the whole informed consent process of this research study or your rights as a human reserach subject, please contact Dr. David Elsweiler (E-Mail: david.elsweiler@ur.de). You should carefully read the information below. Please take as much time as you need to read the consentform.

1. Purpose and Goal of this Research

To explore the influence of the make up of featured snippets when search engines are used to form an opinon on a topic. Your participation will help us achieve this goal. The results of this research may be presented at scientific or professional meetings or published in scientific proceedings and journals.

2. Participation and Compensation

Your participation in this online study is completely voluntary. You will be one of approximately 10 people being surveyed in this pilot study. You will receive 0.60 GBP as compensation for your participation. You may withdraw and discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of compensation. If you decline to participate or withdraw from the online study, no one will be told. You may refuse to answer any questions you do not want to answer.

3. Procedure

After confirming your informed consent you will:

1. read and accept the declaration of consent
2. indicate your position on the topics indicated
3. explain your arguments for your stance
4. interact with a series of search results
5. restate your position and arguments on this issue

Through pre-testing we estimate the completion of this online study to last approximately 3-4 minutes.

4. Risks and Benefits

There are no risks associated with this online study. Discomforts or inconveniences will be minor and are not likely to happen. If any discomforts become a problem, you may discontinue your participation. Your benefit in participating is your compensation of 0.60 GBP.

5. Data Protection and Confidentiality

Personal data (age, gender, etc.) will be recorded while participation. The researcher will not identify you by your real name in any reports using information obtained from this online study and that your confidentiality as a participant in this online study will remain secure and encrypted. All data you provide in this online study will be published anonymized and treated confidentially in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union (EU). Subsequent uses of records and data will be subject to standard data use policies which protect the full anonymity of the participating individuals. In all cases, uses of records and data will be subject to the GDPR. Faculty and administrators from the campus will not have access to raw data or transcripts. This precaution will prevent your individual comments from having any negative repercussions. This site uses cookies and other tracking technologies to conduct the research, to improve the user experience, the ability to interact with the system and to provide additional content from third parties. Despite careful control of content, the researchers assume no liability for damages, which directly or indirectly result from the use of this online application. Any recordings cannot be viewed by anyone outside this research project unless we have you sign a separate permission form allowing us to use them (see below). Records that have not been made public are automatically deleted after the end of the research. The records will be destroyed if you contact the researcher to destroy or delete them immediately. As with any publication or online related activity, the risk of a breach of confidentiality is always possible. According to the GDPR, the researchers will inform the participant if a breach of confidential data was detected.

6. Identification of Investigators

If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact:

• Markus Bink (markus.bink@student.ur.de)
• Sebastian Schwarz (sebastian.schwarz@student.ur.de)