Why am I being asked to participate?
You are invited because you are age 18 or older and currently a UCSF Pathology resident or fellow. Study-team members are not eligible. About 50 trainees are potentially eligible. This voluntary study examines how trainees find useful pathology information and how Hub resources cover curricular topics. It does not assess your competence, review student records or evaluate patient care.
What will happen if I participate?
The survey opens directly to questions. Skip questions and review/edit answers before submitting. Baseline has ten screens; follow-up has twelve for non-users, thirteen for users, or eleven if Hub use is skipped. Questions concern lookup time, tasks, search success, sources, barriers, remembered learning, AI source checking, satisfaction and training stage; follow-up adds Hub experience. There is an optional comment. Completion time has not yet been measured. Nothing is sent until you confirm eligibility and agreement and select Submit survey. Leaving or reloading discards unsubmitted answers. Follow-up is approximately three months after launch; windows last up to four weeks. You may answer follow-up without answering baseline; responses are not linked.
May I allow capture of resource-category clicks
This is optional and separate from the survey. Use the Hub without allowing capture if you prefer. Each page load or new tab starts with capture off. After eligibility and permission, the study captures only clicks on the broad Books, Journals and Lectures category links in the Hub. These choices do not affect evaluations, employment, rotations, educational opportunities or program standing.
Each event contains a random visit ID, event order, the event type click, and one category: Books, Journals or Lectures. We do not record search queries or search-submission events, diagnoses, topics, individual books, articles, lectures, references, destination URLs, chat text, drafts, keystrokes or screen replay. Events contain no names, IP addresses, event timestamps or survey receipts. Events are not linked to your survey or another visit. We count visits and category clicks, not unique people. A separate temporary registry stores a hashed credential, expiry, last event number and information-sheet version. Clicking a category may open another site; activity within that destination is not part of this capture.
The research study does not collect Hub search or prompt text, or record that a search was submitted. Do not enter patient, personal or identifying details into the Hub, including pathology report text. This guidance applies whether or not you allow resource-category click capture.
Can I stop resource-category click capture for a Hub visit?
Use Stop capturing activity to stop future capture. Reloading or opening a tab starts off and requires a new choice. Permission expires after 30 minutes without a recorded action. Expired credentials are unusable immediately, but physical deletion is best-effort and backups may remain until expiry. Earlier events remain after Stop and cannot be located by name or survey receipt. A later affirmative opt-in creates an unrelated visit.
What about comments and ordinary Hub help
The optional comment belongs to your survey response. Separate page flags and feedback are excluded from this research release. Contact Charles for ordinary Hub help without participating; support messages are not automatically research data.
Do not enter patient, personal or identifying details, including report text. Comments are not automatically screened for identifiers before saving. A comment or rare answer combination may identify you. Charles will review comments before analysis/sharing and restrict and exclude identifying material when found. Review cannot guarantee anonymity.
If you discover that you submitted identifying information, contact Charlie.Herndon@ucsf.edu with your receipt if available, without repeating patient details. The team will coordinate applicable privacy and record-handling procedures.
What will the study not collect?
The research collector does not access your medical record, Epic/Beaker activity, external search history or other AI accounts. It does not intentionally collect patient reports or identifiable cases. Educational Hub processing is separate from research collection.
Do I have to participate?
No. You may skip questions or leave before Submit without transmitting answers. Participation does not affect evaluations, employment, rotations, educational opportunities, resource access or standing. Keep your receipt if you may request removal; contact Charles with it. There is no self-service deletion. Without the receipt, we may not locate your response by name/email. Combined results may not be separable. Administrative records and backups can remain under their schedules. Ask Charles to stop invitations separately from your survey answers.
Is use of the Pathology Knowledge Hub required?
No. Hub access is independent of surveys and optional resource-category click capture. No Hub use is assigned. Follow-up is useful even if you rarely used the Hub. Verify sources and use faculty oversight; the sign-out team remains responsible for clinical work.
Educational questions and retrieved sources may pass through model/API services, including OpenAI, and cloud infrastructure independently of research participation. Research answers and activity records are not included in those requests. Provider retention and operational logs are separate from research tables. This document does not promise deletion of all provider logs or IP addresses after 30 minutes. Do not enter patient information.
Are there risks or benefits?
The main foreseeable risk is a loss of confidentiality. Questions about confidence, daily workflow, use of AI or web resources, report-drafting practices, or access to institutional search tools may feel sensitive. There is no expected direct benefit to you. Results may help improve access to pathology educational materials and point-of-need learning resources.
How will my information be protected?
Surveys and visit events are in separate PostgreSQL databases on Google Cloud with encrypted connections and restricted credentials. Random submission IDs and receipts do not identify you; there is no name, participant email, identity key or baseline/follow-up linkage. Charles Herndon is the sole configured researcher for individual exports, protected by Google sign-in through his authorized account. He has no formal evaluative role. The PI/program leadership receive aggregates with identifying combinations omitted. Research tables do not store IPs, but providers may retain operational/security logs. Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed.
The proposed retention period is at least three years after study completion, or longer for applicable requirements or preservation holds. Restricted exports follow the same disposal controls. The temporary registry is separate from retained responses/events. Current backups retain seven daily copies, potentially including deleted registry rows. Administrative records and provider logs may have separate schedules; deleting an active record does not instantly erase backups.
Will my responses be used to evaluate my work?
No. The study does not evaluate the correctness of a diagnosis, report, resource choice, or clinical decision. It does not review actual reports or patient outcomes. Results will be used only for research and educational program evaluation in aggregate. Curriculum mapping describes available educational content; it does not measure your mastery or access your grades or other student records.
Will I be paid?
No. There is no payment for participation.
Who can I contact?
Questions about the study: Charles Herndon, DO, Study Investigator, Charlie.Herndon@ucsf.edu; or Ronald Balassanian, MD, Principal Investigator, Ronald.Balassanian@ucsf.edu. Questions about your rights as a research participant: UCSF Human Research Protection Program / Institutional Review Board, 415-476-1814.
Optional permission for resource-category clicks
This separate Hub choice starts unselected each visit and does not link activity to a survey. Allow only if you meet the same adult UCSF trainee criteria and agree to capture broad resource-category clicks for this visit.
☐ I am an eligible adult UCSF Pathology resident or fellow, not a study-team member, and agree to resource-category click capture for this visit.
Choose Allow for this visit to start and Stop capturing activity to stop. Leaving the choice unselected keeps capture off. Survey agreement does not authorize activity capture.
Allow for this visit