Memorandum: A Mobile App for Efficient Note Keeping in Concurrent Multi-participant Human Subject Studies

Abstract

Note keeping is an indispensable ingredient of successful research. Although traditionally performed on paper, recently the task is increasingly facilitated by Electronic Lab Notebooks, i.e., ICT programs that allow their users to make electronic observations in laboratory settings. When it comes to human subject studies (HSR), i.e., the scientific investigation of human beings for medical, behavioral or social purposes, it is sometimes the case that multiple study participants perform a certain task concurrently. In such concurrent multi-participant experiments, efficient note keeping is critical as it can help assure the quality of the collected data and filter out compromised cases. The current paper presents Memorandum, a novel configurable Android application that allows the assistants of medical, behavioral or social HSR experiments to quickly and easily keep notes about the study participants. The app, which has already been employed in a behavioral study involving 40 participants, is freely available via Google Play.