Dear AoIR-ists, copy to aline franzke, The AoIR guidelines for ethical decision-making (2002, 2012) are living documents that continue to prove useful to researchers and ethical review boards alike who confront the multiple ethical challenges that arise in internet-facilitated research. But novel developments, such as the increased complexity of datasets, questions of “grey data” and data from mixed sources (governmental, corporate, university-based), embedded metadata, along with many others, have occasioned the AoIR project of developing additional ethical guidelines and resources for internet research. So an Ethics Working Group was inaugurated following last year’s conference in Berlin; a first stage in our work will be two ethics roundtables this coming week in Tartu that highlight such contemporary ethical challenges and their possible resolutions, and dialogues with researchers facing similar challenges. At the same time, the Working Group wants to collect examples and develop case-studies of such contemporary ethics challenges. We hope that an effective way of doing so is to invite interested researchers to short, informal interviews (e.g., instead of asking for more formal and time-consuming written accounts). Specifically, we would be very grateful indeed to collect your personal views and opinions about challenges you see in data-driven research. With your permission, these opinions and views may be used to build paradigmatic case-studies that will help improve the guidelines, add some flesh, so to speak, and create a broader and more complete picture about what needs to be addressed in the new guidelines and resources. aline franzke is an ethics WG member who has developed considerable expertise in the area of data ethics. We are very fortunate indeed that aline serves this fall as a research assistant in the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, with specific focus on furthering the research and work of the WG. aline will be available in Tartu to interview researchers who wish to contribute their experiences and comments. The interview may take only a few minutes, but will be limited to 30 minutes. Interviews will be audio-recorded and then transcribed: the original interview recordings will be deleted. Interviewees may remain completely anonymous: it is not necessary to give your name, institution or position. Interview transcriptions will be used only for the purpose of building the body of case-studies. Interviewees may also request to review any potentially public use of the case-study prior to its distribution or publication; they may further ask for either additional steps to protect confidentiality and anonymity, or simply withdraw their permission for the case-study to be published in any way. While challenging and sometimes difficult to document in these ways, we know that it is only by making personal struggles with data research transparent to a certain degree will we be able to respond adequately in the new version of the AoIR guidelines. Please feel free to contact aline at <aline.franzke@gmail.com> if you would like to share a story or describe an issue that urgently needs to be addressed. Many thanks in advance, - charles ess Co-chair (with Anja Bechmann and Michael Zimmer), AoIR Ethics WG -- Professor in Media Studies Department of Media and Communication University of Oslo <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html> Postboks 1093 Blindern 0317 Oslo, Norway c.m.ess@media.uio.no