Hello Virginia You should check the QUT Ethics committee's policies as sensibly suggested by Sharon. You also might want to consider both the context of your research, i.e. the sensitivity of the phenomenon you are researching ( is it discussions about gardening or is it content about being a carer for someone with long term illness) and also the vulnerability of the Facebook participants you wish to include in the research ( obviously there are limits to what you can determine about these people's vulnerability but it is worth thinking about, is the group in any way self identifying as vulnerable or identified by others/researchers as vulnerable?). You may also wish to consider anonymising the content without fundamentally altering the meaning ( again depending on what you need from the data and how you will be analysing it) if you are thinking about reproducing it anywhere in your research, so that it is more difficult to trace back to the poster/originator through search engines. This is another approach to 'protecting' the Facebook participants. I am sure other members of AoIR will have valuable comments too. Sarah On 7 February 2018 at 05:59, Sharon Greenfield <s3417013@student.rmit.edu.au
wrote:
Hello Virginia,
I would suggest reading up on Mary L Gray's many pieces on ethics in online research. In addition, what does the QUT Ethics Committee recommend?
Cheers, Sharon
On 7 February 2018 at 16:38, Virginia Balfour <virginiabalfour@hotmail.com
wrote:
Hello
I would value advice on the ethics of collecting data from an Open Facebook page and the best ways to mitigate them.
My research is looking at an open Facebook page and it is likely that I will want to use data from conversations between commenters and statements made by commenters as part of my research. While most observations will be generalised and made anonymous, there may be some conversations where it is pertinent to identify the commenters and/or identifiable comments.
In particular I am interested in whether people think it is necessary or advisable to contact individual commenters to ask if their comments can be used in the research?
Are their any risk mitigation strategies that anyone has used in the past that they could recommend?
regards
Virginia Balfour
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-- Dr Sarah Quinton FHEA MIDM Chair of Oxford Brookes University Research Ethics Committee Senior Lecturer in Marketing Marketing Department, Business School, Room CLC G.14 Oxford Brookes University Headington Campus Oxford. OX3 0BP +44 1865 485694 *Skype: sarah.quinton5* www.sarahquinton.co.uk www.twitter.com/quinton_digital http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarahquinton <http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarahquinton> *Please note that from October 2017 Dr Karen Handley is now the Business Faculty Ethics Officer and she can be emailed at khandley@brookes.ac.uk <khandley@brookes.ac.uk> concerning PhD student or staff research ethics issues.* Recent publications: *Out Now*: Quinton, S., and Reynolds, R. (2018*),The Ethics of Online Research. *Ed Kandy Woodfield, The changing roles of researchers and participants in digital and social media research, chap 3, 53-78. Quinton, S., Canhoto, A., Molinillo, S., Pera, R. & Budhathoki, T. (2017). Conceptualising a digital orientation: antecedents of supporting SME performance in the digital economy, *Journal of Strategic Marketing*, 1-13. Quinton, S. and Simkin, L. (2016). The Digital Journey: reflected learning and emerging challenges, *International Journal of Management Reviews, * (forthcoming) DOI:10.1111/ijmr.1204 *Current research project* - Sharing photographs online and on social media by older people: a mitigator of social isolation and loneliness. Funded by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, in partnership with The Open University.