Improve CM consent form and account approval process

[cgreim]

@devincdillon and I have been discussing the need to improve our process for collecting consent forms and approving accounts for children under 13, especially as we try to get widespread educator adoption of CM.

I think a big part of the challenge is moving from creating/approving accounts for individual users to making a smooth process for educators to create accounts for an entire class of students.

I tried creating a few flowcharts so we could look at the current processes and think about alternatives.

Individual User Consent Form Process: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6U9IORSnGLbVkJDSVplaEZhMGs&authuser=0

Educator Consent Form Process: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6U9IORSnGLbanF1dWpGNnFBcWc&authuser=0

These are rough sketches of how I see it working now, thoughts and improvements welcome!

In the Educator flowchart, I included a possible alternative based on what DIY.org does with educator accounts.....as an educator, you can create a student account that is automatically activated and linked to your own (without a consent form). Not sure if something like this would be possible for us, my guess is that it depends on legal questions. @marianarutigliano maybe something we can ask about in our call tomorrow?

@marianarutigliano could you also reply with details about the idea of activation via phone for CM accounts? I know that was in the works a while ago, would be great to revisit.

[cgreim]

tagging @audsbodin too since she and Devin have been thinking about this!

[marianarutigliano]

Hi Cat!

awesome charts!

This is what COPPA determines for ways to collect consent forms:

-

getting a signed form from the parent via postal mail or facsimile; - this is what we do currently, and there is a cost of U$ 9/month for the FAX service.

accepting and verifying a credit card number in connection with a transaction; - we decided to not go for this option as parents may be afraid thinking we will charge them + underserved families may not have a credit card. I continue to think it's an option if it's messaged well and there is the option to do it through a different method.

taking calls from parents, through a toll-free telephone number staffed by trained personnel; - this is the call center office. We would have to provide trained staff of the call center access to our system so that they can unblock accounts. It also involves a notification system so that they know when new accounts are created and can call the parent to confirm they are the parents of child x and that they confirm the child can have an account and interact online. This is what DIY does (at least when I met their team maybe 2 years ago). There is a cost for the call center, but it's not prohibitive. When I checked it costed an average of U$ 20,000 / year considering a volume of 6k new accounts.

email accompanied by digital signature. - this is easy to set up with docusign, but the costs are very high and it turns out almost the same than a call center. that's why we pushed back. If the option they coded for Technovation is an option, it can be a great alternative.

I would do call center only (if $ permits, which is not the case) or offering the other 3 options as a possibility.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 4:29 PM, Cat notifications@github.com wrote:

tagging @audsbodin https://github.com/audsbodin too since she and Devin have been thinking about this!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Iridescent-CM/curiosity-machine/issues/223#issuecomment-69674711 .

Mariana Rutigliano _Curiosity Machine Director Iridescent_Curiosity Machine http://curiositymachine.org |website http://www.iridescentlearning.org/ *| watch us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94JY-Zs1r2U* _Follow Us: [image: Facebook] http://www.facebook.com/pages/Iridescent-ONR/125009044180713 [image: Google Calendar] http://https//www.google.com/calendar/hosted/iridescentlearning.org/embed?src=heo0pf217oq2lsn9m3v8srflt4@group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York&gsessionid=97qwa0WMWfNkyFx_zDfFvQ [image: YouTube] http://www.youtube.com/user/tarachk [image: WordPress]_

[audsbodin]

@marianarutigliano is there any information about who a guardian can be for COPPA? It seems in the DIY setup that Cat mentioned, the educator is acting as a guardian, whose consent is evident by their directly setting up the account.

As far as consent forms for signing – I've mentioned before that this can be done entirely digitally. I've even updated our consent form to include a digital signature field, you can test for yourself. Just open in Adobe Reader (free and included on most computers) and sign by following Reader's prompts (we can also give instruction on the form).

These can also be set up to collect data. Data from signed consent forms can be collected in a spreadsheet rather than having the whole doc saved and emailed to us. There may also be a way to work with @stenington to automate the process of unlocking pre-existing accounts with the data that's collected.

[marianarutigliano]

Hi Audra, this is definitely an improvement, but it doesn't help much in terms of making it very easy and intuitive. Ideally, we should be able to click Sign Form and the page opens for the user to just sign and submit.

I'm not completely sure about the possibility of a child account to be linked to the educator. It seems to me that if this is valid, it should be just for a temporary period and, if the child wants to continue, the parent must validate the account. In this sense, this would be a temporary way to get kids in the platform. Do you know if andrew explored this when he met DIY founder? When I talked to them there wasn't this option yet.

Cat, one comment: we should update the consent form linked in the Get Started page, I realized now this was never done. This is the document https://s3.amazonaws.com/curiositymachine/statics/parental-consent-and-privacy-policy.pdf we should replace by Audra's polished version.

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 9:16 AM, audsbodin notifications@github.com wrote:

@marianarutigliano https://github.com/marianarutigliano is there any information about who a guardian can be for COPPA? It seems in the DIY setup that Cat mentioned, the educator is acting as a guardian, whose consent is evident by their directly setting up the account.

As far as consent forms for signing – I've mentioned before that this can be done entirely digitally. I've even updated our consent form to include a digital signature field, you can test for yourself https://www.dropbox.com/s/b58d4r68ns77vap/CM%20Parent%20Consent%E2%80%932014.pdf?dl=0. Just open in Adobe Reader (free and included on most computers) and sign by following Reader's prompts (we can also give instruction on the form).

These can also be set up to collect data. Data from signed consent forms can be collected in a spreadsheet rather than having the whole doc saved and emailed to us. There may also be a way to work with @stenington https://github.com/stenington to automate the process of unlocking pre-existing accounts with the data that's collected.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Iridescent-CM/curiosity-machine/issues/223#issuecomment-69781274 .

Mariana Rutigliano _Curiosity Machine Director Iridescent_Curiosity Machine http://curiositymachine.org |website http://www.iridescentlearning.org/ *| watch us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94JY-Zs1r2U* _Follow Us: [image: Facebook] http://www.facebook.com/pages/Iridescent-ONR/125009044180713 [image: Google Calendar] http://https//www.google.com/calendar/hosted/iridescentlearning.org/embed?src=heo0pf217oq2lsn9m3v8srflt4@group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York&gsessionid=97qwa0WMWfNkyFx_zDfFvQ [image: YouTube] http://www.youtube.com/user/tarachk [image: WordPress]_