Plain Language Statement

School of Computing and Information Systems | Faculty of Engineering and IT

Project

Pilot Trial of MoodDJ (Ethics Approval ID: 31467)

Student Researcher

Xanthe Lowe-Brown | Email: xlowebrown@student.unimelb.edu.au

Project Supervisors

Dr Greg Wadley | Email: greg.wadley@unimelb.edu.au

A/Prof Peter Koval | Email: p.koval@unimelb.edu.au

Dr Solange Glasser | Email: solange.glasser@unimelb.edu.au

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in participating in this research project. The following few pages will provide you with further information about the project, so that you can decide if you would like to take part in this research. Please take the time to read this information carefully. You may ask questions about anything you don't understand or want to know more about. Your participation is voluntary. If you don't wish to take part, you don't have to. If you begin participating, you can also stop at any time.

What is this research about?

The purpose of the research is to pilot a new music-listening app, MoodDJ. MoodDJ creates playlists that take into account how you are feeling and how you want to feel. The study will explore emotions in everyday life and your user experience of MoodDJ.

Am I eligible to participate in this study?

You are eligible to participate in this study if you are (1) over 18, (2) living in Victoria and able to come to an in-person onboarding meeting at the University of Melbourne, (3) have a Spotify Premium subscription, (4) have over 100 liked songs on Spotify, (5) do not have a current diagnosis of a mental health condition (e.g., depression) and (6) able to provide written consent.

What will I be asked to do?

This study involves two parts.

Should you agree to participate in this study, in Part 1, you will be asked to participate in a 30-40 minute in-person onboarding meeting at the University of Melbourne where you will learn how to use our MoodDJ app in a small group. Using MoodDJ involves first logging into exportify.net with your Spotify account and then logging into mooddj.com with the same Spotify account. Then you will be asked to report how you are currently feeling and how you want to feel. You will then be asked to (1) select a song that expresses how you are currently feeling and (2) select another song that expresses how you want to feel, and (3) your desired number of songs for your playlist. These selections will be used to create a Spotify playlist for you to listen to (selected from your 'liked songs'). You will be asked to use MoodDJ in your daily life for 14 days. You will be asked to complete online surveys measuring your emotions and wellbeing: (1) during the onboarding meeting, (2) at the end of each day of the 14-day study and (3) at the end of the study.

In Part 2 of the study, after you have used MoodDJ for 14 days, you will be asked to participate in a 30-to-60 minute interview either via Zoom or in-person at the University of Melbourne. You will be asked questions relating to your experience of using MoodDJ, including any ethical issues that arose, your willingness to recommend it to your family/friends, and your thoughts on the playlists generated by MoodDJ.

The minimum expected time commitment for all components of the study is ~4 hours: onboarding session (30-40 mins), 14 x end-of-day surveys (5 mins each = 70 mins), post-study survey (10 mins), post-study interview (60 mins), and at least 5 mins per day to use our MoodDJ app (5 mins x 14 = 70 mins).

What are the possible benefits?

Your participation in this research will help us to understand how you use MoodDJ and how your use is related to your daily emotions and well-being. Your use of MoodDJ may help you reflect on how you currently use music and how you feel in your daily life. At the end of the study, you will have the option of receiving a personalised report graphing your emotions across the two-week study, which may provide insight into your emotions and help you to reflect on your responses across the study period. You will also receive a $50 online gift card via GiftPay for your participation if you (1) use MoodDJ at least once a day for two weeks (or an equivalent number of times across the two-week period), (2) complete all surveys attentively and (3) complete the post-study interview. Please note: participants will only receive a gift card after completing all three tasks.

What are the possible risks?

There are risks associated with your use of MoodDJ in your daily life:

(1) Although it is normal to experience unpleasant feelings in daily life and even to sometimes deliberately seek out negative feelings, repeatedly using MoodDJ with the goal of maintaining or amplifying negative feelings may be risky. If you become distressed during the study, you can stop the study at any time, and we suggest that you contact the following support services:

- Beyond Blue (tel: 1300 22 4636)
- Lifeline (tel: 13 11 14)
- University of Melbourne Counselling and Psychological Services (https://services.unimelb.edu.au/counsel/home)

Details of how to find these support services are also included in the MoodDJ app under Settings -> Support Services.

(2) In the event that you use MoodDJ without headphones, there is a possibility that the music you listen to could influence other people in your surroundings. We recommend using MoodDJ with headphones to prevent this.

(3) MoodDJ will generate a playlist including the songs that you selected that express how you are currently feeling and how you want to feel, with additional songs from your liked list on Spotify. MoodDJ may, therefore, have an unwanted impact on your feelings if some of the selected songs from your liked list are associated with emotional events/memories.

Do I have to take part?

No. Participation is completely voluntary. You are able to withdraw at any time, with any reason and to withdraw any unprocessed data previously supplied. There will be no consequences if you withdraw from the experiment even after you have started.

Will I hear about the results of this project?

We will publish the results of this experiment in public academic research publications, presentations, the student researcher's PhD thesis, as well as on the University and/or project website. Please let us know if you would like us to email the results of the study to you.

What will happen to information about me?

All information about participants collected via online surveys, the MoodDJ app and Zoom will be de-identified and securely stored on the student researcher's University password-protected laptop, as well as backed up to the student researcher's University of Melbourne SharePoint account, which is password-protected and only accessible by the named researchers. We will de-identify data collected during the onboarding survey, daily diary surveys and post-study survey by not asking for any information from you that could identify you, and we will keep these surveys separate from your responses to the screening survey. All data collected via the MoodDJ app (i.e., liked songs on Spotify, current/desired emotion data, songs included in generated playlists and their characteristics) will be stored on the Melbourne Research Cloud and will then be downloaded and saved to the student researcher's University password-protected laptop, as well as backed up to the student researcher's University of Melbourne SharePoint account, which is password-protected and only accessible by the named researchers. The data will be carefully managed to minimise any risks. We will de-identify data collected via MoodDJ by removing participants' Spotify usernames and replacing them with hashed (randomised) ID numbers. We will de-identify the post-study interview transcripts by removing any identifiable data. Data will be kept for a minimum of 5 years after the completion of the project. In line with open science principles, we will make the anonymised data publicly available on a repository such as the EMOTE database (emotedatabase.com) and/or Open Science Framework (osf.io) for the purposes of replication/reproducibility.

Where can I get further information?

If you would like more information about the project, please contact the student researcher or project supervisor:

Xanthe Lowe-Brown at:
Email: xlowebrown@student.unimelb.edu.au

Dr Greg Wadley at:
Email: greg.wadley@unimelb.edu.au

Who can I contact if I have any concerns about the project?

This project has human research ethics approval from The University of Melbourne (Project ID: 31467). If you have any concerns or complaints about the conduct of this research project, which you do not wish to discuss with the research team, you should contact the Research Integrity Administrator, Office of Research Ethics and Integrity, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010. Tel: +61 8344 1376 or Email: research-integrity@unimelb.edu.au. All complaints will be treated confidentially. In any correspondence please provide the name of the research team and/or the name or ethics ID number of the research project.