My name is Earl Oliver. I am a Ph.D. candidate in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. I am conducting a study to understand how BlackBerry users interact withtheir devices. Understanding how users interact with their devices is fundamental to the design of systems thatutilize periods of non-usage to exchange information with other devices using opportunistic wireless communication.
To participate in this study, you may load a simple application on to your BlackBerry smartphone. This application runs as a background process that recordswhen the device’s screen is turned on or off, and when the device is plugged into a power source for charging. The application is totally non-invasive and will not affect your use of the device. You may withdraw from the study at any time by revoking your consent to participate in the study, or by uninstalling the application from your device.
The application periodically uploads logs that contain an anonymous usage pattern. Usagelogs contain no personal or identifying information.
To participate in this study, install the application by entering the following URL into your BlackBerry browser:
You may also contact Earl Oliver at +1 519-574-6512 or eaoliver at uwaterloo dot ca
This project has been reviewed by, and received ethics clearance though, the Office of Research Ethics at the University of Waterloo. You may contact this office at +1 519-888-4567 ext. 36005 if you have any concerns or questions resulting from your involvement in this study.
email the admins or pm one of the mods. Just to make sure everything is on the up and up. Not saying its not a legit survey but you never know. Better to be safe than sorry.
Will this program automatically load, or does it have to be started after every battery pull/reset?
It starts automatically and when in the background it only runs when the screen turns on and off. It's totally event driven by callbacks in the OS, so you'll never notice it.
Yeah, the app is pretty simple. The app writes little log files that are in a "log" directory on your SDCard or local file system. The application uploads the logs every week and shows exactly how many bytes have been uploaded (very few).
Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate any help I can get.
Of course. I've setup a mailing list on my website for people to subscribe to for updates. The data is anonymous, so I'm happy to share it with anyone that wants it.
