Signing example
Consent form e-signature
A consent form e-signature needs two things an ordinary signature does not: proof of who consented and a record of exactly what they agreed to. This two page participant consent for the fictional Marlowe Sleep Study captures both, with six required statement boxes, a six digit emailed code, and an audit trail this page walks through event by event.
The document, with its fields
The pages as a signer sees them, with the signature, name, title and date fields placed where each party has to complete them.
Participant Consent
Study summary
The Marlowe Sleep Study examines how shift patterns affect sleep quality in adults aged 25 to 55. Over eight weeks you wear a wrist actigraph, keep a two minute nightly diary in the study app, and attend two overnight laboratory sessions at the Institute, four weeks apart. About 120 participants take part. The study is funded by a national research grant and no commercial sponsor sees identified data.
What participation involves
| Commitment | Detail |
|---|---|
| Wrist actigraph | Worn day and night for eight weeks, waterproof, posted back in week nine |
| Nightly diary | About two minutes each evening in the study app |
| Laboratory nights | Two overnight sessions of about ten hours, with sensors applied to the scalp and face |
| Reimbursement | $180 across the study, paid per completed component |
Risks and withdrawal
The known discomforts are mild: skin irritation from sensor adhesive and a less familiar night's sleep in the laboratory. There is no medical treatment in this study. You can withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without any effect on your care or your relationship with the Institute; data already collected is retained unless you ask for it to be destroyed, which you can do up to the point results are published.
Data handling
Your data is stored re-identifiably, coded against a key held separately by the data custodian, on Institute systems in Australia. Only the named study team reads identified data. Results are published in aggregate only. The dataset without identifiers may be shared with approved researchers after publication, as the ethics approval allows.
Consent statements
Type a mark in each box. Every statement is required; the form cannot be submitted with an empty box.
| I have read the participant information for protocol MSS-26-04, version 2, and I have had my questions answered. | |
| I understand what participation involves, including the two overnight laboratory sessions. | |
| I understand I can withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without consequence. | |
| I agree to my data being stored re-identifiably and shared without identifiers after publication. | |
| I agree to being contacted about the two laboratory sessions and the return of the actigraph. | |
| I am aged between 25 and 55 and I do not hold a commercial driving licence, as the exclusion criteria require. |
If you change your mind
Tell the study team by phone or email and your participation ends there. If you withdraw before your second laboratory night you are still reimbursed for the components completed. Ask for your collected data to be destroyed at the same time if you want that; after results are published the aggregate results cannot be unpublished, but your identified records can still be destroyed.
Participant declaration
I freely agree to take part in the Marlowe Sleep Study as described above.
Who signs what
- Jonah Ellery, the participant
- Six statement boxes, all required · Name, prefilled from the invitation · Signature and stamped date of consent · Verified by emailed one-time code
The signing journey
Step 1
Nine fields on the statements page
Six checkbox fields sit over the printed statement boxes, labelled Statement 1 to Statement 6 and all marked required, joined by the participant's name, a date field and the signature. The name arrives already filled from the recipient record.
Step 2
The code proves the mailbox
The link opens the verification card first. Jonah requests the six digit code, enters it within ten minutes, and only then sees the document. The trail records the challenge and the successful verification as separate events.
Step 3
Consent is captured twice
Before any field can be touched the portal's consent gate must be accepted, and its timestamp and version end up in the certificate. Then each of the six statements is marked by typing a character into its box; the stamper prints an X for any marked box.
Step 4
Required means required
The Finish signing button reports what is still needed and the submission is refused while any required box is empty, so a consent with an unmarked statement cannot exist in this system.
Step 5
Certify and deliver
One drawn signature completes the page, the listener stamps and certifies the file, and the certified consent goes to the participant and the study coordinator with the certificate available as its own download.
What the audit trail recorded
This envelope's certificate logs nine events in order: Envelope created, Document attached, Invitation emailed, Sent for signing, Link opened, Verification code sent, Identity verified, Document viewed, and Signed. Certified and Completed land in the trail moments later; they cannot appear inside the certificate because it is written and sealed into the file before certification. The status page shows the full chain with the Hash chain verified badge.
What the signed PDF and certificate show
Page 2 of the signed file carries six X marks, the participant's name, the drawn signature and the stamped date. The certificate adds the consent gate's timestamp and version, the hash of the document as sent and the hash of the fully signed file, and the signature image's own hash, which together are the evidence a study coordinator files.
How to adapt this envelope
A clinic intake consent swaps the statements and keeps the structure. Where a guardian must consent for a minor, add them as a second recipient with their own boxes and signature, as the photo release example does. For a witnessed procedure consent with an access code given by phone, see the medical consent example, which is the same skeleton with different verification.
What makes this signing flow work
Six statements, six marks, no bundling
Each statement has its own required box, so the participant marks data handling separately from withdrawal rights. The signed page shows six X marks against six printed sentences, which is a far better record than one signature under a wall of text.
Identity is more than a link
The one-time code ties the consent to control of the participant's mailbox at the moment of signing, and the certificate says so, printing Email link + emailed one-time code beside the name with the IP address underneath.
The trail is a chain, not a list
Every event's hash includes the hash of the event before it, and the status page verifies the chain end to end. An edited or deleted event would break the chain at that sequence number and the page would say exactly where.
Questions people ask
Does the participant tick the boxes?
They type a character into each small box and the finished PDF prints the letter X wherever a box carries any value. There is no tick control in the signing portal; the only true checkbox on screen is the electronic signing consent gate itself.
Can the form be submitted with a statement unmarked?
No. All six statement boxes are marked required, and the portal refuses submission while any required field is empty, naming the first missing one next to the Finish signing button. An incomplete consent cannot reach the stamped file.
What exactly does the audit trail record?
Eighteen event types exist, from creation and invitation through verification failures, declines, resends and expiry. This envelope produced nine of them on its certificate, listed above, each with a UTC timestamp, the signer's email where one applies, and a hash linking it to the previous event.
Is an emailed code strong enough identity for consent?
It proves control of the participant's mailbox at signing time, nothing more, and the certificate states the method plainly so nobody overreads it. Studies that need a stronger tie can share an access code through a separate channel instead, as the medical consent example does.
Can the participant withdraw consent later?
Not through the envelope, which is a record of what was agreed on the day. Withdrawal from the study is the study's own process, and this form spells that out in its withdrawal section before anyone signs.
Where is the consent version stored?
The portal's consent gate records the version the participant accepted, and it prints in the certificate beside the acceptance timestamp. The document's own version, protocol MSS-26-04 version 2, is fixed inside the PDF and covered by the document hash.
Build your own in about a minute
The button below opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own, generate, then edit anything you like.
Make my consent form e-signatureOther signing examples
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Contractor agreement e-signature
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Want the steps in the builder? Read Send a PDF for e-signature, then Send a document for signature. For everything this generator can do, see the signing flow maker.
Sources
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .