GENERAL INFORMATION AND INFORMED CONSENT FORM

                                  FOR PARENTS AND LEGAL GUARDIANS


Thank you for considering your child’s participation in this survey which is carried out as part of
the ySKILLS (“Youth Skills”) project. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated and will be important
for the Project.

About our project

ySKILLS is a four-year project running under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and
Innovation Framework Programme. We aim to understand what digital skills children and young people
need nowadays to be safe online and benefit from opportunities on the internet. Collecting
information on these current topics is important for many people including educators and
policymakers, but also for parents like you, and young people themselves. For more information
about the project, please visit: https://yskills.eu/

The data collection

Our project aims to understand the changes and development of digital skills and online experiences
in children aged 12-17. To achieve this, we plan to ask the children about their experiences this
year, and if possible, in following two years - specifically, in Spring 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Data will be collected via online questionnaire with the use of computer in the school that your
child attends.

The questions will inquire about the child’s experience with the use of technology, internet, and
about potential risks connected with this (e.g. cyberaggression, receiving sexual content, or
seeing inappropriate contents on the internet). The children participating in the study can skip
any of the questions, if she or he does not want to answer it or select the choice “I don’t know”
or “Prefer not to say”. The data collection will be administered by trained professionals and will
take approximately 45 minutes. Children will be completing the questionnaire individually. After
the data collection, there will be the opportunity to ask questions about the survey or share
comments. There is nothing to prepare in advance, only pen a blank piece of paper.

Consent is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time

Your child decides if she or he wants to take part in the survey and, at any point, they or you can
decide that they won’t be participating anymore. Be reassured that this is okay and there will be
no negative consequences for your child.

Confidentiality

All data will be anonymized and therefore cannot be connected directly with your child. Because we
need to understand the development in children, we need to link the data across the two years of
data collection. This will be done via code which will be used for each child, but the link with
the child’s identity will be kept separately from the data we obtain from your child. Thus, it will
not be possible to identify your child based on the data. This means no one (for example teachers,
classmates, or parents) will be able to link your child’s answers in the questionnaire to him or
her. After the end of the data collection and finalizing the data, all stored information needed
for linking the data across the three questionnaires will be deleted. The procedure follows the
GDPR rules and ethical codex of social science surveys. The data from this survey will be used only
for research purposes.

Potential risks and discomforts

We do not anticipate any obvious risks or disadvantages of participation in this survey. It is
however possible that some questions might be uncomfortable to answer. However, children do not
have to answer the questions if they do not want to. With any questions or comments about the
survey, they can always turn to the trained administrator. They can also turn to their teacher, or
school advisor for answers or support.

Contact information

If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact the ySKILLS
test coordinator XXXX on this email address XXX@xx.com or on this phone number XX.


                                         Informed Consent


We would kindly ask you to read the following information carefully. Please note that by signing
this document you confirm that you understand and agree to the following:

·         I have read the information sheet for this study and fully understood its content.

·         I consent with the participation of my child in this research project.

·         I understand that participation in this project is voluntary and that it is possible to
withdraw from participation at any time.

·         I permit my child’s data to be retained and used in future research within the ySKILLS
project.

·         I understand that the anonymous data from this study may be published in academic
publications, shared in an open archive etc.

If you agree with the content, please provide us with your signature at the bottom of this form,
add a date and return it to us via email to XXX@xx.com ).

My child’s name (Please write his/her name clearly): _____________________________________________

My name (Please write your name clearly): ____________________________________________________

Date: _______________________________


My signature: _____________________________________