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Right now this is just annotations of the content from the handbook - hopefully the page will grow to recapture more of our work around research.

https://handbook.tts.gsa.gov/18f/how-18f-works/research-guidelines/#compensating-user-research-participants-2

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Doing research at TTS

Research isn’t only usability testing. Testing our assumptions by actively engaging with the world around us is at the heart of how TTS works. We do research when we meet with stakeholders to learn about a project, when we investigate and compare tools and systems, and when we find members of the public to tell us about their experiences with the federal government. Research can include questionnaires and surveys, as well as analytics.

These guidelines should be familiar to anyone who's done research in the private sector or in academia. However, as public servants, we need to make sure that we're following a few basic principles.

Respect: We honor people's opinions and choices, only blocking actions that are obviously going to harm others. We make sure that anyone participating in our research is doing so of their own free will, and that they have enough information to make that decision responsibly.
Beneficence: We do our best to further people's best interests, and we avoid actions that might hurt them. This goal extends to society at large: before doing research, we need to consider whether what we're doing is in the best interests not just of individual participants but of the organizations and the country that we serve.
Justice: We do our best to ensure that we compensate research participants in some way for the time and energy that they contribute. We don't have to pay money, but we do have to give something back to participants. Sometimes that means just saying "thank you" and letting them know how much their input has helped improve government services. Other times, it can mean making a card or handing out cookies or fruit. Participation incentives, which are common in the private sector, are more tricky here in government. So please ask one of the Research Guild leaders if you think they're necessary for a specific study.

While only scholarly researchers are strictly obligated to follow these principles, they are widely accepted in the United States as ,a set of overarching values guiding all investigations involving humans.

This document explains two main tasks we do to operationalize our basic principles: informing and getting consent, and managing personally identifiable information (PII).

Informing and getting consent

TTS researchers have an obligation to ensure that our participants know what it means to participate in our research and how we plan to use the information we collect. Before getting consent, ensure participants understand:

They cannot expect to receive compensation for their participation (unless otherwise agreed to with our agency partners — note that this is a legal issue!)
The types of information we may record (this could be name, direct quotations, photos, screen captures, etc.)
How we will share information we collect. Usual options include: No one ever (off the record), within the immediate project team, on a need-to-know basis (our default), and with the general public.

Getting consent

TTS gets explicit consent from anyone who participates in our moderated research, generally by asking that our research participants sign a "design research participant agreement".

TTS maintains a ,TTS-only,template for internal use, and an ,example participant agreement for sharing with interested parties. Please make a copy of the participant agreement document template, put it into your project folder, and edit the highlighted text for each of your research studies. If your participants are likely not fully literate in English, consider having the form translated to the correct language or working out a process for verbal consent using a translator.

When sending participant agreements electronically, please use our ,TTS-only,participant agreement email template. This template clearly specifies how people can opt out of a study and/or request that we do not contact them in the future.

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The participant agreements are pages within the guides

https://guides.18f.org/ux-guide/participant-agreement/

https://guides.18f.org/ux-guide/resources/#email-templates - email templates

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