Privacy & what taking part involves

What this study is about

We're studying how an app can help students connect with fellow students and facilitate genuine social contact. The app helps you arrange casual, small-group meetups (typically groups of four or five) in public places on or near campus.

Through the app, you can make plans with other students. The app may work somewhat differently for different participants. Either way, you always decide yourself whether to accept, change, or decline any proposed plan.

What you'll be asked to do

• Sign in with your university email address and verify your student ID.
• Complete a short baseline survey about your campus network.
• Coordinate a small-group meetup with fellow students in the app.
• Accept, ask to change, or decline a proposed plan.
• Attend the meetup in person, followed by a short check-in and feedback.

How your information is used

Everything you tell your agent gets sorted into three tiers: Keep private (your agent keeps the note to understand you; it is not used for planning and is not passed to other agents), Use to plan (only your own agent uses it when scoring activities for you; it is not passed to other agents, but we cannot guarantee it stays hidden), and Share with other agents (other students' agents can use it to plan for the group; assume other students could learn it, though they do not see it as a profile). You can review, edit, change the tier of, or permanently delete any note before it is used, including things your agent inferred that you never explicitly said. Baseline survey responses are collected for research only and never affect group assignment or activity choice. Demographic information is used only for eligibility and research, with one exception: your gender is used when groups are formed so that at least two women are in every group. Other students do not see your answer; a plan only shows how many women are in the group and how many of them have accepted, never who. Your in-app activity logs and pseudonymized conversation transcripts will be analyzed for research purposes; only aggregate or fully anonymized information will appear in any future publication.

Where your data is processed

The researchers are based at Saarland University, Germany (see the legal notice). Specific services used:

• Database (Supabase): hosted in the EU. Your responses, extracted facts, and interaction logs are stored there.
• App hosting (Vercel): the app itself runs on Vercel's infrastructure in the EU.
• AI models: we use models hosted by Microsoft Azure in the EU. If you have questions, contact jzhu@cs.uni-saarland.de.

Meetups and responsibility

Meetups are arranged between students. The researchers and Saarland University do not organise, host or supervise them and are not present. You decide for yourself whether to go, and you are responsible for your own safety, travel and conduct. If the people you meet decide to do something else later, or to meet again, that is your own arrangement and not part of this study.

Meet in a public place and tell someone you trust where you are going. If you feel uncomfortable, you can cancel or leave at any time.

To the extent the law allows, the researchers and the university are not liable for accidents, injuries, loss or damage that happen at or after a meetup. This does not limit any liability that cannot be excluded by law, for example for intent, gross negligence, or injury to life, body or health.

Your rights

Taking part is voluntary. You can withdraw at any time, for any reason, without penalty. You can review, edit, or ask us to delete your data at any time: contact jzhu@cs.uni-saarland.de.