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January 26, 2015 Why E-Signatures Don’t Seem Quite the Same as Hand Signatures Participants in an online study rated an e-signed travel-reimbursement application as less valid than an identical hand-signed document, scoring it 2.93 versus 3.29 on a 1-to-5 validity scale, says Eileen Y. Chou of the University of Virginia. Her research shows that people feel negatively about an e-signature because they get a weaker sense of the signer’s presence and involvement. The effect wasn’t related to participants' comfort with digital technologies, Chou says. SOURCE: Paperless and Soulless: E-signatures Diminish the Signer’s Presence and Decrease Acceptance

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