Dear Colleague,
Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) is a large-scale collaborative research project in the digital humanities directed by Dr. Ray Siemens, Department of English, University of Victoria, and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Our research team is examining the complex processes of human engagement with information that is available digitally. Specifically, we are interested in identifying and understanding the ways in which social sciences and humanities readers engage with forms such as the electronic scholarly edition, the academic monograph, scholarly journal and essay collections, and electronic literature.

With this letter, we are inviting you to complete a short survey about how you experience and use digital resources in the context of your research. The findings of this survey will be used to improve existing digital tools and to derive requirements for prospective tools and resources that we hope will be of benefit to you and other researchers.

The questionnaire should take approximately twenty minutes to complete. If you are willing to participate, you will find it online at . Your identity will be kept confidential. All documents and participants will be identified only by code number. Digital data records will be kept on password-protected hard drives and on disks stored in locked filing cabinets. Only the principal investigator and the co-investigators will have access to the data. If you have any concerns about your treatment or rights as a research participant, you may contact the Research Subject Information Line in the UBC Office of Research Services at 604-822-8598. Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary and you may refuse to participate or withdraw from the study at any time. Your completion and submission of the survey will indicate your consent to participate.
In consideration of your time, you may enter a draw for a $150.00 gift certificate from an online bookstore upon completion of the questionnaire.

We look forward to the prospect of your participation in this study. Please feel free to contact the INKE Graduate Research Assistant, Karen Taylor, at any time if you have questions about this research: 604-737-2873 (British Columbia, Canada) or katay164@interchange.ubc.ca.

Best regards,

Dr. Teresa Dobson for the INKE Team
Associate Professor
Director, Digital Literacy Centre
University of British Columbia
c/o Department of Language & Literacy
2125 Main Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4