To participate in a study with WhiteCloud, you will need to have a WhiteCloud user account and be registered in the study. There are a couple of ways this can work:

1. If you already have an account with WhiteCloud and have applied to participate in the study online, then there is nothing more anyone needs to do to register you.
2. If you do not have a WhiteCloud account, then the researcher may create an account for you so that they can enroll you into their study. Once this is done, you will automatically be registered into the study, and you will receive an email from WhiteCloud confirming your account and login details. The researcher will not be able to login as you or access your account in anyway.

When you log in for the first time you will be prompted to complete your account profile. The information you provide will only be visible to you and the researchers that are managing the study.

To access the study, go to your Dashboard, select MyStudies, then click on the study name. This will open the MyParticipation page for this study. From here you can:

• Access study and researcher information
• See all study messages, and send messages to your researcher
• See your participation schedule (if relevant)
• Access and complete data collection forms (e.g. questionnaires, if relevant)

Researchers from the study, or studies, that you have registered with will have access to your information. These researchers control who can access your data, and to what extent. For specific information on who can access your data from a study, please contact your researcher. Your data is otherwise kept private and confidential (see How secure is WhiteCloud? below).

If you are registered by your researcher, then by default you will only receive emails that are directly related to your participation in the study, and occasional important updates from WhiteCloud. However, you will have the option to enable study notifications – emails to inform you of new study opportunities that match your profile (age, sex, location). You will not automatically receive WhiteCloud promotional material or newsletters, however if you are interested in these, you can register separately.

No, this is completely free for participants. Researchers may pay for access to premium features.

This is up to the discretion of the researcher, please check with them directly.

We take your security of your data seriously, and implement very strong server and client side security protocols, as well as ensuring that what happens in-between cannot be intercepted.

ResearchStudies is hosted with WPEngine, a managed host selected specially for high processing speed and security standards, including disk protection, script detection, external penetration testing and daily backups.

All data are securely stored and accessible only to those that have been explicitly granted access. User role control means that you have full control over who can access, or edit, just about everything. Participant names (and other data) may be concealed for some users, and sensitive form data can be selectively hidden if necessary when sharing form data.

More broadly, data access restrictions comply with the Health Information Privacy Code (1994) and Good Clinical Practice guidelines (1996) for personal health information. Data are stored on a physically secured, fire-walled and SAS 70 Type II compliant server, and transmitted via SSL encryption. More information here.

We limit brute-force attacks, however recommend that you choose a strong and unique password to prevent malicious guessing of your password.