FBI Gathers Volunteers' Handwriting Samples at WVU

WVU collects handwriting samples (The Daily Athenaeum)

During the first session, volunteers included hundreds of students, faculty and community members.

Those participating were first asked to fill out release forms that asked for consent to use their handwriting data in published papers and other studies.

Volunteers were given identification numbers and promised they would stay anonymous.

"They're all identified by random numbers, so we don't know names, but they can tell which each individual wrote what," Williams said.

Next, they were asked to copy the same paragraph three times.

Volunteers were asked to write a 2,500-character story about one of four given prompts. After they were finished, volunteers were given a $50 Visa gift card for participating in the study.

Earlier post: West Virginia: FBI seeks local volunteers for handwriting project

West Virginia: FBI seeks local volunteers for handwriting project

Pizza and Fifty Bucks (The Daily Athenaeum)

The Federal Bureaudatabase. [sic.] of Investigation is looking for West Virginia University students to volunteer for a handwriting study which will contribute to a growing biometric The study will dissect anonymous volunteers' handwriting and allow the University's forensics department to learn the importance of handwriting in solving crimes. ... "In order to promote interest in the program, coordinators will compensate participants with a $50 VISA gift card and pizza during sessions," Caridi said.

My guest post at the M2SYS blog touched upon the fact that developers require large data sets in order create and test their biometric matching algorithms. Here's an example of how they collect the data they need.