New Research Experiment for Latent Print Examiners

[g.]

Dear Colleague,

I am conducting a large research experiment with latent print examiners (I need about 120 participants). Trainees can participate as well. For now, I ask 10 print folks to hold off, we will re-open the study at a later date to collect 10-print community data. Also the instructions below apply to U.S. examiners. Examiners outside the U.S. can contact me to participate, but I need to explain a few differences to you off-line.

1) If you are interested, EMAIL ME in return and GIVE ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS

Email me at glenn.langenburg@state.mn.us

2) I will mail you a CD (although I will be at the American Academy meeting and in Portland teaching a stats class next week, so if you are in either spot, I can bring you the CD).
3) You need your OWN CD to do the experiment (each has a private anonymous personal user name and passcode). So you can't share it with others.
4) Indicate how many CDs you'd like me to send. We will mail them out to you in one shipping.
5) Once you get the CD, if you have internet access you can begin the experiment. Just follow the instructions (insert CD, log in, print help instructions, and go).
6) We are asking you to complete 12 comparisons on screen. The data are stored on a secure server in Switzerland, so you can access the experiment anywhere, anytime, and stop and start at your leisure. We anticipate an average of 2 hours per participant (+/- 1 hour depending on your comparison speed and comfort with using some potential new documentation tools).
7) When completed, you will get a passcode to redeem a small honorarium (if you choose) AND most importantly a DVD full of training materials (1000's of images for comparisons, practice certification tests, the answers to the experiment, and lots more images, and a full Holy Grail update....).

Plus when the thesis is done, I will send a .pdf version to all the participants too...

I am looking for as many participants as possible and I am trying to collect data through mid-April.

I have a formal letter of solicitation describing the experiment, goals, etc. in as much detail as I can offer.

Thanks in advance for your support and I hope to hear back from you!

g.

[g.]

Hi all, the response has been tremendous. We sent out 100's more CD's than expected. Of course, we realize only a fraction of participants will finish the study. But I hope that we will get to our goal. In one week I have about 1/3 the number of people I need to complete the study. So hopefully, we will get there by April 15, when we will close down the data collection.

At this time, I think we are sending out the last of the CDs. After this, I can give manual instructions to access the site if someone wants to, but it involves you downloading and installing Firefox and an Adobe Flashplayer.

We also realized that due to various firewalls, agency software restrictions, and other IT imposed regimes a la "the Man", that some participants would not be able to do this at work. You are welcome to do it from home, but I realize that many of you have better things to do than fingerprints at home!

Thank-you sincerely for your time and interest and participation. It will be exciting to see the results and share them with you.

Best to you,

g.

[g.]

Hi All, just a quick reminder. We are closing data collection portion of the study APRIL 15, 2010. So if you received a disc and planned to participate, please try to complete by midnite April 15. Figured tax day is an easy reminder (for the U.S. participants).

Once we close the study, all participants that emailed us their passcode (received at the end when all 12 experimental trials are done), will receive an email from my intern. She is going to collect all the emails from the swiss email account and will give the next set of instructions to collect the DVD of training materials and/or the honorarium if you are interested. Those emails will probably come out a couple of weeks into May with the DVDs to ship soon after. She's doing this and handling all the transactions so i can remain unaware of who actually completed the study. I'd prefer to maintain the anonymity of any study participants.

Incidentally we sent out 600 CDs! That's incredible and the response and interest was unbelievable. About 200 people started the study and about 130 have finished. Additionally there were about 50 requests from outside the U.S. I have to say, kudos to the profession. I know many of you actually did this at home, on your own time. I really look forward to analyzing the data and having something ready for Spokane (and repeated again in Milwaukee) at IAI. We will also draft a manuscript to submit for publishing probably around Dec 2010.

Also, just to be clear, we are not sending out any more CD's or seeking any additional people at this point. This is just a reminder for those that already received discs.

Thanks again all. The support is much appreciated.

g.

[g.]

FYI,

We closed data collection on the study officially on April 15; however, unofficially we continued to collect data for inclusion up to today.

If you did not finish the study, I am sorry but we need to begin data crunching to meet our deadline for the IAI...plus I'd like to graduate soon. =)

People may continue to access the site for some time, but there will be a warning message stating that the study has closed and no more data collection will occur.

We will be contacting all participants in about month to finalize the study, send your materials, and give feedback.

Also I suspect in June or July we will reopen the study for 10 print examiners to collect some data for their community as well. So hang tight and we'll get back to you.

By the way, we well exceeded any expectations and had a tremendous response (over 160 finished). That's incredible. This will be the largest LPE study of its kind.

If you did not participate, but still would like to, our research group applied for an NIJ grant and if successful, you will have an opportunity hopefully next year. We will use the results of this study to modify, improve, and re-vamp for another one next year. I have all your emails and addresses...so I'll get a hold of you later.

Thanks to all who participated, tried to participate but couldn't, or really really really wanted to--but couldn't find the time, but were with us in spirit anyway... =)

g.