Resources on On-Line Dating and SMS Language
Friends- I have two 4th year undergraduates who are doing term research projects on online dating and the grammar (broadly construed) of SMS and its effect on "communication skills" of Gen Y. Any suggestions on where to turn for either theporetical or empirical analysis into tthes topics would be most appreciated. Andrew Herman, Ph. D. Associate Professor Department of Communication Studies Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 CANADA 519 884-1970 x3693
Hi There, Obviously not all will apply but these are some I found interesting when looking into something similar: Bugeja, M. J. (2006). Facing the Facebook. *Chronicle of Higher Education.* 52(21). C1-C4. Farrell, E. (2006). Judging Roommates by Their Facebook Cover. *Chronicle of Higher Education*. 53(2). 66. Lemeul, J. (2006). Why I Registered on Facebook. *Chronicle of Higher Education.* 53(2). 113. Lin, C., Sun, Y., Lee, Y., Wu, S. (2007). How Instant Messaging Affects the Satisfaction of Virtual Interpersonal Behavior of Taiwan Junior High School Students. *Adolescence*. 42(166). 417-430. Maushak, N. J., Ou, C. (2007). Using Synchronus Communication to Facilitate Graduate Students' Online Collaboration. *Quarterly Review of Distance Education.* 8(2). 161-169. Whiteman, E. (2007). Just Chatting: Research Ethics and Cyberspace. *International Journal of Qualitative Methods*. 6(2). 1-9. -Gordon Carlson -PhD Student, RA -University of Illinois at Chicago On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Andrew Herman <aherman@wlu.ca> wrote:
Friends-
I have two 4th year undergraduates who are doing term research projects on online dating and the grammar (broadly construed) of SMS and its effect on "communication skills" of Gen Y. Any suggestions on where to turn for either theporetical or empirical analysis into tthes topics would be most appreciated.
Andrew Herman, Ph. D. Associate Professor Department of Communication Studies Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 CANADA 519 884-1970 x3693
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-- Gordon Carlson C: 541-990-1155
Dear List Members, I was wondering if anyone knows of postdoc opportunities in the field of new media and Internet research in Germany or Switzerland. You may reply to my personal email below. Many thanks! Elad Segev _______________________________________ Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice Keele University, Staffs ST5 5BG Email: e.segev@keele.ac.uk
Dear List Members, I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee. I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories. The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names... What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is. Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Hi Alecea, Your supervisors seem to bring up some of the most standard issues faced by most Ph.D. students working on digital cyberspaces. In my own dissertation, where I analysed and explored many personal (but public) blogs, I was given a clearance to treat them as standard web-content which was in the public domain. However, for content which was available only to friends or to people who had accounts or content posted in communities which required membership for access to the material, I solicited acquiescence from the individual bloggers, or where it was not possible, from the group moderators. I would ideally think that if the information does not require special membership or rites of access, it is safe to think of it as residing in the public domain and proceed with the work. I am not very sure about the project as 'participant observation' because in my scheme of things, participation observation includes the transparent location of the observer within the community and a ready awareness of the subjects to 'perform' in this presence. I hope there are more discussions around this topic. cheers Nishant On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 9:20 AM, Alecea Standlee <stan0504@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee.
I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories.
The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology
____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Nishant Shah Ph.D. Student, CSCS, Bangalore. Research & Development, COMAT, Bangalore. # 0-9740074884
My view is that you should approach the committee that will consider your ethics application and ask them for guidance. M-H On 7/3/08 2:50 PM, "Alecea Standlee" <stan0504@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee.
I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories.
The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology
______________________________________________________________________________ ______ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Hey, the Blogs I am using for my Diss are being treated as Web content too and I am citing them accordingly. Doing my Diss in the literary studies department this was accepted without further discussion, i guess because - basically - the author-as-an-inidivdual-subject is not a category given much consideration. So if I am speaking about the "Blogger" I am talking about a textual subject. Still textual subjects obviously have a lot to do with who and what we are and definitely deserve protection. The Blogs I am dealing with (Soldiers Blogs) have mostly been written about in the press and are all under censorship by the Pentagon anyway - so that complicates the question even more, but makes it ok for me to also treat them as public material. Sorry, as you can see I think this is a difficult issue too. Best, Johanna Sfb War Experience University of Tuebingen Germany On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 5:07 AM, mhward <mhward@usyd.edu.au> wrote:
My view is that you should approach the committee that will consider your ethics application and ask them for guidance.
M-H
On 7/3/08 2:50 PM, "Alecea Standlee" <stan0504@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee.
I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories.
The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology
______________________________________________________________________________
______ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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Hello all, Most interesting! (And please see extended thanks, below). I think the AoIR guidelines and subsequent discussion / literature may be helpful here in two ways, 1) as they distinguish between posters as "subjects" in approaches shaped by the social sciences, drawing on the medical model of Human Subjects Protections, and posters as authors in approaches shaped more by humanities. The latter _want_ acknowledgment, publicity, etc. - and in any case, if their work is published online, under U.S. Copyright law, it is copyrighted. The ethical issue then becomes one of how far one can cite under "fair use" (very muddy for digital materials, as Dan Burk has helpfully reminded us) - and when one must ask permission for, in effect, re-publishing published materials. (They didn't happen to license their work with a Creative Commons license or something similar, did they? That would help, I think ...), And 2) as they highlight the importance of posters' expectations regarding their material. To begin with then, if the primary debate is between
1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
Then I would lean strongly in favor of "1)" - with regard to material drawn from public sites. These are fiction writers working towards publication and publishing their work on public sites. At the same time, however, it gets sticky with regard to
their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories. If the authors' notes were originally posted in a smallish, "members only" venue with either explicit or at least implicit expectations that these materials would not be shared with a larger public without the authors' permission, then advisor 2 makes important points. If, on the other hand (which is not likely), the authors' notes were published in a larger, more open venue with little expectation that these materials are somehow private, then we're back to advisor 1. [This is not to say that advisor 3 is completely off-track. Au contraire - this is a defensible position, but one that I would characterize as the ethical minimum. Advisor 2 is moving towards what may be more than absolutely necessary - but interestingly enough, this is characteristic among several researchers in these domains. The fancy term for it in ethics "supererogatory" - above and beyond an ethical minimum; Judith Jarvis Thomson coined the phrase "Good Samaritan Ethics" back in the 1970s to make the same point. Take your pick - though the latter, of course, is heavily culturally laden.]
So you might divide your ethical treatment of the materials into at least two approaches, depending on where the materials appear. Moreover, I keep returning to the continuum of possible options for informed consent originally developed by Danielle Lawson to be helpful for providing still more nuance - but also more complication, perhaps: n1. consent to having their nickname and communicative text used for data analysis only (no publication of name or text); n2. consent to having either their nickname or text published in an academic work, but never together (i.e., no identifiers); n3. consent to having either their nickname or text published in an academic work, but never together (i.e., no identifiers) and providing they get to see the write up¹ prior to publication; n4. consent to having both their nickname and text published in academic work, thereby being credited as the authors of their own words; or n5. consent to having both their nickname and text published in academic work, thereby being credited as the authors of their own words, providing they get to see the write up¹ prior to publication. The last two options deal directly with the issue of CMC copyright. [Blurring the boundaries: Ethical considerations for online research using synchronous CMC forums, p. 93. In E. Buchanan (Ed.), Readings in Virtual Research Ethics: Issues and Controversies, pp. 80-100 (Hershey: Idea Group, 2004).] These possibilities may be helpful for refining your response to advisor 2? In any event, hope these comments are useful - please do keep us posted as to the outcome! - charles ess
On 7/3/08 2:50 PM, "Alecea Standlee" <stan0504@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee.
I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories.
The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology
lol - I see that we are still re-inventing the wheel with regard to these issues - I had the same dilemmas and negotiations studying email listservs more than 10 years ago. Its like any ethnographic research - always and continually negotiated. Depends on what you (intend) do with what you "research" (even the act of reading something online and being there is research for a researcher) and how much you should or reasonably can protect confidentialiy etc. My advice -get HSRB approval just in case. Use informed consent forms if the blogs/websites are explicitly protected - see descriptions etc - if password protected or for friends only - and you can read it - well then you are a participant/ reader part of the in-group and should probably not violate trust - get consent... keep the consent forms handy - negotiate each instance case by case by researching how "private" or "public" features intersect in each unique case... there are no absolute generalizations in terms of ethics - I would say - but there ARE things like accountability to the community and people that you are writing about and with - and this determines what ethical behaviour you pursue r Radhika Gajjala Grad coordinator office on secondlife: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bowling%20Green%20State/203/217/39 http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik
My personal opinion is that if you are debating whether you should or should not pursue IRB approval...then you should pursue it. ESPECIALLY if you are a grad student. It is probably wise to mention that the much discussed "academic freedom" does not include grad students under it's legal umbrella, and beyond making that statement I will have to leave it to experts to explain the finer points of the issue. One of the things that is often missed about the IRB process in the USA, is that once the university has approved the research then you are shielded by the universities approval. Should someone inquire (aka gritch) about your research then they can deal with the universities systems such as IRB personnel and legal advisers. If you don't have IRB approval then you are on your own...and might have to deal not only with the complainer but with the aforementioned university professionals. And don't think that people do not complain about our research. In truth, complaints come in all the time. Since many of these complaints do not rise to the level of online archiving I will point to one large example that has been discussed online. To check it out do a search on "phishing experiment" (without the quotation marks) to see the spotlight that can be placed on our research, even our approved research. While it isn't often that a university research project gets slashdotted, it does happen, and trust me on this, you will want to have the attorneys and the media people dealing with it so you can go about your business as much as possible. As for the issue of your IRB's understanding of online research, I agree many do not understand, but as educators and members of the academic community it is up to us to educate them. I've done my part at IU and I have seen our IRB gain understanding of the unique and not so unique issues surrounding this work. Remember that any new venue for research has the same set of underlying issues...you have to teach your audience what questions to ask so they understand how to think about what they are receiving. You can educate them by writing up a well reasoned and articulated research protocol, by meeting with leaders in the organization, by asking to present your research to the full committee, and by becoming a member of the IRB. Remember that most major university boards in the USA have graduate student members...you might have to ask the application process but they are out there. No quicker way to educate the IRB community about internet research then by working from the inside out. Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and IUPUC, Columbus IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com
there are no absolute generalizations in terms of ethics - I would say - but there ARE things like accountability to the community and people that you are writing about and with - and this determines what ethical behaviour you pursue
I am glad to see Radhika mention "accountability to the community" as a key variable in making this kind of ethical decision. Do community standards, policies, practices, and feelings matter in this research decision? What we have heard from various AoIR researchers (e.g., Bruckman, Ess) is that communities or community members often have an expectation of privacy, even when postings are public. Should researchers honor such expectations -- and, thus, probably lean toward seeing formal informed consent? My sense is that generally, yes, they should -- and not only in the interest of avoiding harm to the participants as a collective but also in the interest of avoiding community backlash against researchers. What Heidi McKee and I have seen from our own research on Internet researchers -- and yes, we regard that as human subjects research! -- is that most researchers we've interviewed, and certainly most ethnographers, are careful to respect community standards and beliefs because *not* doing so potentially impairs future research. Harm to the researcher (and to future research) is also, I would argue, a part of the ethical decision here. Jim Porter ------------------------------- James E. Porter Co-Director, WIDE Research Center Writing in Digital Environments Olds Hall 7 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 porterj8@msu.edu office: 517.353.7258 fax: 517.353.9162 http://wide.msu.edu/ -----------------------------------------
I dont necessarily think research ethics or IRBs in themselves take this accountability fully seriously (nor can they actually) although AAA (anthropologists) have some guidelines (for whatever its work - since in-practice in offline "third-world" context where researchers go in from "first world" academia - whatever their ethnic etc identity - I have seen easy violations of these by sloppily trained researchers) On Mar 7, 2008, at 12:05 PM, Jim Porter wrote:
there are no absolute generalizations in terms of ethics - I would say - but there ARE things like accountability to the community and people that you are writing about and with - and this determines what ethical behaviour you pursue
I am glad to see Radhika mention "accountability to the community" as a key variable in making this kind of ethical decision. Do community standards, policies, practices, and feelings matter in this research decision? What we have heard from various AoIR researchers (e.g., Bruckman, Ess) is that communities or community members often have an expectation of privacy, even when postings are public. Should researchers honor such expectations -- and, thus, probably lean toward seeing formal informed consent?
My sense is that generally, yes, they should -- and not only in the interest of avoiding harm to the participants as a collective but also in the interest of avoiding community backlash against researchers. What Heidi McKee and I have seen from our own research on Internet researchers -- and yes, we regard that as human subjects research! -- is that most researchers we've interviewed, and certainly most ethnographers, are careful to respect community standards and beliefs because *not* doing so potentially impairs future research. Harm to the researcher (and to future research) is also, I would argue, a part of the ethical decision here.
Jim Porter
------------------------------- James E. Porter Co-Director, WIDE Research Center Writing in Digital Environments Olds Hall 7 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 porterj8@msu.edu office: 517.353.7258 fax: 517.353.9162 http://wide.msu.edu/ -----------------------------------------
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From a Fellow Grad Student -
Since you are at the mercy of your institution and your committee you have several considerations. First, if you are dealing with people in any context you will likely need a waiver at least. If you review the forms and conditions on your institutions IRB site it should be fairly clear if your research "could" fit a waiver. For example, I received a waiver to look at publicly archived listservs. If you file for a waiver and they think you need to go through a more complicated process then you can do it - if not - you are home free. Every institution is different - mine is pretty tight. I just made a case that there was no expectation of privacy - in fact - the point for that group was transparency. Second, what does your Chair say? Ultimately, he/she will have to green light it. And as a matter of course if the chair says ok then the committee will go along. If one member is really twisted up about it then you can always replace them. If you can look at the IRB regs and make the case to your committee that you qualify for a waiver it should not be an issue. Third, do YOU think there is a reasonable chance of risk or harm to the people involved? What steps could you take to mitigate this yourself other than going through human subjects? In a waiver application demonstrate you have taken steps to mitigate any potential problems. I agree with those who have stated that such environments have no expectation of privacy. Since anyone can visit them even using pseudonyms will not protect them if you directly quote. IMO, there has been too much hang-wringing and lawyering up over online research - and could make a lot meaningful research impossible. This is particularly ironic in the face of the data collected by businesses. At some point you have to give things over to the professional judgment of the scholar. This is not to say the IRB process is not important - I just think it has gotten WAY out of hand in the social sciences and humanities. -TED Ted M. Coopman Department of Communication University of Washington
Hi again,
the Blogs I am using for my Diss are being treated as Web content too and I am citing them accordingly.
Doing my Diss in the literary studies department this was accepted without further discussion, i guess because - basically - the author-as-an-inidivdual-subject is not a category given much consideration. So if I am speaking about the "Blogger" I am talking about a textual subject.
Still textual subjects obviously have a lot to do with who and what we are and definitely deserve protection.
The Blogs I am dealing with (Soldiers Blogs) have mostly been written about in the press and are all under censorship by the Pentagon anyway - so that complicates the question even more, but makes it ok for me to also treat them as public material.
Sorry, as you can see I think this is a difficult issue too.
Thanks very much for this - I'm wondering: since bloggers by definition want their material to be read, and so a blog is a publication - it would seem that they are to be considered primarily as authors. As noted previously, copyright law then comes into play - at least in the U.S. (I don't know how this would play out in the German context - aber es würde mich sehr interessieren, das zu erfahren!) But, at least in the U.S. Context, not so much concerns about Human Subjects protections. But you're also quite correct, of course, that bloggers are people, too (smile). And so I'm wondering if you can say more about what sort of protection you think might be ethically called for here? Let me quickly add: I'm _not_ challenging your intuition - on the contrary: I think you are on to something important here. Part of my curiosity stems from the fact that when the AoIR guidelines were developed and approved, blogs were a relatively new phenomenon and we did not have much opportunity to explore the ethical dimensions of this then very new territory. But they clearly evoke important ethical considerations, as these recent postings make clear. And so I'm hoping and hopeful that by teasing out a bit more here, we - and especially the ethics working group - might gain some very helpful insight indeed into some of the issues, possible responses, etc. Vielen Dank / many thanks! - charles Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Center <http://www.drury.edu/gp21> Drury University Springfield, MO 65802 USA President, Association of Internet Researchers <www.aoir.org> Co-Editor, International Journal of Internet Research Ethics http://ijire.uwm.edu Co-chair, CATaC conferences <www.catacconference.org> Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes <http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php> Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
Let me quickly add: I'm _not_ challenging your intuition - on the contrary: I think you are on to something important here. Part of my curiosity stems from the fact that when the AoIR guidelines were developed and approved, blogs were a relatively new phenomenon and we did not have much opportunity to explore the ethical dimensions of this then very new territory. But they clearly evoke important ethical considerations, as these recent postings make clear. And so I'm hoping and hopeful that by teasing out a bit more here, we - and especially the ethics working group - might gain some very helpful insight indeed into some of the issues, possible responses, etc.
ooo, Asa and I had a big debate about this sort of thing on second life research list a while ago. my position is that documents are exempt and openly published, searched/archived blogs are documents, much like architecture and environments in online worlds are documents, much like studying the pen and pencil collection of Charlie would be studying documents. You might need permission of the extant property or copyright holder, but categorically, you are not studying humans or creating subjects. This is similar to places in which you have a right to public photography, you can take pictures of people for research without their permission so long as you are not dealing with those people in any way that intervenes or likely causes any more predictable substantial harm than any other person taking pictures. That is to say that if in your actions, in reading a book or taking a photograph, you are doing it like anyone else and possibly using/ reviewing it for a publication, you are not directly intervening with the author in a harmful manner or in a way that uniquely identifies them in a way that anyone else could not in acting in their normal way have done.
i should point out that Asa has a different perspective than I do, sorry about that.
Hey I created several blogs for my dissertation that have become reasonably popular for an academic based blog and even are high on the Google list. In fact, it got so crazy that I had to create a separate blog for the actual dissertation, but it was truly worth it because I based and a leading expert in the field traveled from North Carolina to Maryland to watch my successful defense and he wants me to write some journal articles with him and for a publication. My blog looks like a traditional site but operates interactively like a blog. I used an open research model with the permission of the participants. In fact I will be speaking on April 15th at Innovation 2008 in Breckenridge, Colorado, where many of the people that I cited will be on the program. Just Google Innovation 2008 to get the conference details. -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Charles Ess Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 8:47 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Online research ethics Hi again,
the Blogs I am using for my Diss are being treated as Web content too and I am citing them accordingly.
Doing my Diss in the literary studies department this was accepted without further discussion, i guess because - basically - the author-as-an-inidivdual-subject is not a category given much consideration. So if I am speaking about the "Blogger" I am talking about a textual subject.
Still textual subjects obviously have a lot to do with who and what we are and definitely deserve protection.
The Blogs I am dealing with (Soldiers Blogs) have mostly been written about in the press and are all under censorship by the Pentagon anyway - so that complicates the question even more, but makes it ok for me to also treat them as public material.
Sorry, as you can see I think this is a difficult issue too.
Thanks very much for this - I'm wondering: since bloggers by definition want their material to be read, and so a blog is a publication - it would seem that they are to be considered primarily as authors. As noted previously, copyright law then comes into play - at least in the U.S. (I don't know how this would play out in the German context - aber es würde mich sehr interessieren, das zu erfahren!) But, at least in the U.S. Context, not so much concerns about Human Subjects protections. But you're also quite correct, of course, that bloggers are people, too (smile). And so I'm wondering if you can say more about what sort of protection you think might be ethically called for here? Let me quickly add: I'm _not_ challenging your intuition - on the contrary: I think you are on to something important here. Part of my curiosity stems from the fact that when the AoIR guidelines were developed and approved, blogs were a relatively new phenomenon and we did not have much opportunity to explore the ethical dimensions of this then very new territory. But they clearly evoke important ethical considerations, as these recent postings make clear. And so I'm hoping and hopeful that by teasing out a bit more here, we - and especially the ethics working group - might gain some very helpful insight indeed into some of the issues, possible responses, etc. Vielen Dank / many thanks! - charles Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Center <http://www.drury.edu/gp21> Drury University Springfield, MO 65802 USA President, Association of Internet Researchers <www.aoir.org> Co-Editor, International Journal of Internet Research Ethics http://ijire.uwm.edu Co-chair, CATaC conferences <www.catacconference.org> Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes <http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php> Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
I have found that the IRB's that I have worked with (and I assume you will be working with as a student in the U.S.) have not been sources of good insights on the ethics of online studies, as they haven't understood the online world. This may not be the case for you, but I would recommend that you decide what seems ethically responsible independent of the IRB and then take it to them with your reasoning. You may want to consider what has been published on the subject. The two references I know of off the top of my head that are decent and will help you think through the issues are: 1) http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7321/1103 2) www.apa.org/science/apainternetresearch.pdf My personal opinion is that it is fine to not get informed consent when dealing with data that was clearly posted online in a completely public setting (as opposed to in a community that requires registration). However, I would think about the sensitivity of the data and desires of the authors when deciding whether or not to use actual usernames and direct quotes from the postings. For example, if the intended audience to the content was clearly a small group of friends and not the "world at large" then I would likely not use actual usernames and not use large direct quotes (that would be easily searchable and tracable to the individual) in publications unless I had first received permission from the individual. However, if the content was published to gain recognition and for a large audience then I would be more inclined to use the actual username and directly quote from messages. Derek Hansen The iSchool at Maryland On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 11:07 PM, mhward <mhward@usyd.edu.au> wrote:
My view is that you should approach the committee that will consider your ethics application and ask them for guidance.
M-H
On 7/3/08 2:50 PM, "Alecea Standlee" <stan0504@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee.
I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories.
The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology
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if you are in the united states and if these are published online, in an open forum that does not require any login, then you are clearly dealing with documentary evidence, which is clearly exempt from irb. you are doing the same exact thing as going to the university archives and doing research about the still living presidents of the university. one good way to test this is to see if the data that you are trying to use is in the internet archive. if there is a login required to get the information you are using, then there may be an assumption of privacy, which then brings up issues of the subject. you also have the question of harm, as these people are using pseudonyms they likely have an assumption that if people found out there could be harm involved. however the key distinction that you need to deal with right now is... are you dealing with the people? or are you dealing with documents? If you are going to talk or participate in the community, then you are dealing with people. then it is participant observation, which might not be exempt and you might still need informed consent, but you might not, depending on many factors... mainly depending on the harm question. if you intervene in their life in any way (this does not include re-publication) such as emailing them, chatting with them, then if there is possible harm involved, you will likely need informed consent forms as you are constructing them as a defined human subject of research, if there is no possible harm, and you are merely participating as a member of the community and documenting your participation then you are presenting it as an ethnography. if you are just going to capture the texts that are freely available on the internet, then you are dealing with documents. document research is exempt. so... what i'm saying is... your methods determine the ethics you must follow, define your methods.
See also the AoIR Ethics Working Group and its recommendations at http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf . Sj On Mar 7, 2008, at 6:52 AM, Derek Hansen wrote:
I have found that the IRB's that I have worked with (and I assume you will be working with as a student in the U.S.) have not been sources of good insights on the ethics of online studies, as they haven't understood the online world. This may not be the case for you, but I would recommend that you decide what seems ethically responsible independent of the IRB and then take it to them with your reasoning.
You may want to consider what has been published on the subject. The two references I know of off the top of my head that are decent and will help you think through the issues are: 1) http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7321/1103 2) www.apa.org/science/apainternetresearch.pdf
My personal opinion is that it is fine to not get informed consent when dealing with data that was clearly posted online in a completely public setting (as opposed to in a community that requires registration). However, I would think about the sensitivity of the data and desires of the authors when deciding whether or not to use actual usernames and direct quotes from the postings. For example, if the intended audience to the content was clearly a small group of friends and not the "world at large" then I would likely not use actual usernames and not use large direct quotes (that would be easily searchable and tracable to the individual) in publications unless I had first received permission from the individual. However, if the content was published to gain recognition and for a large audience then I would be more inclined to use the actual username and directly quote from messages.
Derek Hansen The iSchool at Maryland
On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 11:07 PM, mhward <mhward@usyd.edu.au> wrote:
My view is that you should approach the committee that will consider your ethics application and ask them for guidance.
M-H
On 7/3/08 2:50 PM, "Alecea Standlee" <stan0504@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee.
I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories.
The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology
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And if I may add a rule of thumb I've found to work well in thinking about what should and should lead to an IRB application in the USA - remember that my default is to always apply, especially if you are a grad student. Here's the rule: If you are studying the site(s) as texts without consideration to the issues of the people who wrote the words, placed the pictures, etc....then I think you can use the text argument. HOWEVER, if you are using the words or pictures or whatever, on the screen to get at issues related to the content creators then you are studying people. PERIOD. So from my perspective as soon as you are gathering demographic data...you are studying the people and using the text as the tool to do that study. I'm sure a non-human subjects social networking study could be - and probably has been - designed but, almost by definition, social networking is studying the content creators rather than the content. Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and IUPUC, Columbus IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com Quoting Alecea Standlee <stan0504@yahoo.com>:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee.
I am conducting community and social network research with a group online. Essentially, the group is a collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a variety of venues, including personal websites, story archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where the talk to and about other members of their group and somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted with the stories.
The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with regard to informed consent. I have three different sets of recommendations 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting on public websites and explicitly states that their stories are for public consumption, so should be treated as document data and cited using standard citation practices for blogs and websites. 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the group should be considered individual subjects, including requests of permission to use statements, pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent forms of some sort. 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated as participant observation, that I should inform members that I am using data from the authors notes and feedback but not require consent forms. Specifically, since the participants use screenames and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so I should focus on how to protect or not their screen names...
What do you all think about the issue? Should I contact the authors and not use the feedback, which sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group? Should I treat it like document websites? I am really torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student. Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship Department of Sociology
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Lori as usual gives very good and detailed advice. In the following case most of the time the publisher of the article or book wont even let you use the images without permission On Mar 7, 2008, at 10:25 AM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
f you are studying the site(s) as texts without consideration to the issues of the people who wrote the words, placed the pictures, etc....then I think you can use the text argument. HOWEVER, if you are using the words or pictures or whatever, on the screen to get at issues related to the content creators then you are studying people. PERIOD.
Radhika Gajjala Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43402 http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik http://www.cyberdiva.org/blog
Well yes and no, then the question becomes one of what you are saying about what. This is a slippery slope because one can always argue that if the creator of something is still alive... you are studying people and I think we should explicitly avoid implication that studying people makes any given individual a research subject. There are a myriad of ways of studying people without fitting the description of a research subject in the u.s. guidelines (which is not as rich and plural as many humanist might wish, but ehh....). The situation in the u.s. as i've read it makes people a subject when you intervene, when you invade privacy, or when you might risk harm (harm in a way that is substantially more and different from the everyday.) I do agree that if you aren't sure whether you are subject to irb approval, you should get irb approval. But I don't think we should argue that studying blogs archived on the web and making inferences from their produced textual materials about bloggers in general is any different than when i study books and publications in order to make inferences about the operations of academia. Now, if i were to study a blog to understand one person's life that might be an issue, and it would depend signficantly on the methods you undertake as to where my opinion would lie.
If you are studying the site(s) as texts without consideration to the issues of the people who wrote the words, placed the pictures, etc....then I think you can use the text argument. HOWEVER, if you are using the words or pictures or whatever, on the screen to get at issues related to the content creators then you are studying people. PERIOD.
This has been a great (perennial) discussion. Perhaps AOIR should create a FAQ or a Wiki? Maybe there is one... I may have missed it but I've not seen anyone note that there is a huge difference between publically available content versus content that requires membership to view. Unmoderated membership subscription is an interesting gray area. Perhaps AOIR can provide official opinions about Internet research methods that will help researchers when they make presentations to their IRBs. Charles Balch professor of CIS Arizona Western College
I agree and I disagree. If you are making inferences about academia...an institution with people and infrastructure, etc...then I totally agree. However, if you are using the text to get at information about bloggers as a collective...then I don't agree. I would also disagree if your inferences were toward people as academics...but that might be personal too. *w* I think one could do citation analysis without IRB approval...though I don't know the actual history of that form of research...because the real unit of analysis is the citation. What I see happen most often in these discussion is that the online presence of text, pics, etc is being used as an access point to infer about the humans using the technology...that's human subjects research because the real unit of analysis is the person not the online text, pics, whatever. The online content is an access point to gather information about the people. Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and IUPUC, Columbus IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com Quoting Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu>:
Well yes and no, then the question becomes one of what you are saying about what. This is a slippery slope because one can always argue that if the creator of something is still alive... you are studying people and I think we should explicitly avoid implication that studying people makes any given individual a research subject. There are a myriad of ways of studying people without fitting the description of a research subject in the u.s. guidelines (which is not as rich and plural as many humanist might wish, but ehh....). The situation in the u.s. as i've read it makes people a subject when you intervene, when you invade privacy, or when you might risk harm (harm in a way that is substantially more and different from the everyday.)
I do agree that if you aren't sure whether you are subject to irb approval, you should get irb approval. But I don't think we should argue that studying blogs archived on the web and making inferences from their produced textual materials about bloggers in general is any different than when i study books and publications in order to make inferences about the operations of academia. Now, if i were to study a blog to understand one person's life that might be an issue, and it would depend signficantly on the methods you undertake as to where my opinion would lie.
If you are studying the site(s) as texts without consideration to the issues of the people who wrote the words, placed the pictures, etc....then I think you can use the text argument. HOWEVER, if you are using the words or pictures or whatever, on the screen to get at issues related to the content creators then you are studying people. PERIOD.
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I think one could do citation analysis without IRB approval...though I don't know the actual history of that form of research...because the real unit of analysis is the citation. What I see happen most often in these discussion is that the online presence of text, pics, etc is being used as an access point to infer about the humans using the technology...that's human subjects research because the real unit of analysis is the person not the online text, pics, whatever. The online content is an access point to gather information about the people.
I disagree, i think one can research systems and representations of people without creating human subjects. It is a question in that case of the level of analysis of your inference. If you are collecting a whole bunch of blogs and doing a content analysis to talk about bloggers, i do not think you are necessarily doing human subjects research, but you could be. If you stick to describing the blogs and the interactions of text and what that means about the people that create them that is likely not, but when you talk about an individual creator doing things in the world, then you are. it is the difference between talking about the system or society versus talking about the person. You can use documentary evidence still in researching subjects without creating a human subject, at least that is the way most irb materials read. documentary materials or data already collected and collated by someone else is exempt.
This connects to an interesting discussion I've had in another context, which has to do with whether, when one is doing research in Second Life, observations of, or interactions with, avatars are observations of or interactions with human subjects. I'm curious to know what others think. Thanks, Sj On Mar 7, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
I think one could do citation analysis without IRB approval...though I don't know the actual history of that form of research...because the real unit of analysis is the citation. What I see happen most often in these discussion is that the online presence of text, pics, etc is being used as an access point to infer about the humans using the technology...that's human subjects research because the real unit of analysis is the person not the online text, pics, whatever. The online content is an access point to gather information about the people.
I disagree, i think one can research systems and representations of people without creating human subjects. It is a question in that case of the level of analysis of your inference. If you are collecting a whole bunch of blogs and doing a content analysis to talk about bloggers, i do not think you are necessarily doing human subjects research, but you could be. If you stick to describing the blogs and the interactions of text and what that means about the people that create them that is likely not, but when you talk about an individual creator doing things in the world, then you are. it is the difference between talking about the system or society versus talking about the person. You can use documentary evidence still in researching subjects without creating a human subject, at least that is the way most irb materials read. documentary materials or data already collected and collated by someone else is exempt.
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Does conventional IRB policy accept the concept of unobtrusive measures? Patterns of evidence left by multiple anonymous individuals do not seem to rise to the level of ethical concern that triggers IRB attention. Andy Rojecki ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Jones" <sjones@uic.edu> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 10:49 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] Online research ethics
This connects to an interesting discussion I've had in another context, which has to do with whether, when one is doing research in Second Life, observations of, or interactions with, avatars are observations of or interactions with human subjects. I'm curious to know what others think.
Thanks, Sj
On Mar 7, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
I think one could do citation analysis without IRB approval...though I don't know the actual history of that form of research...because the real unit of analysis is the citation. What I see happen most often in these discussion is that the online presence of text, pics, etc is being used as an access point to infer about the humans using the technology...that's human subjects research because the real unit of analysis is the person not the online text, pics, whatever. The online content is an access point to gather information about the people.
I disagree, i think one can research systems and representations of people without creating human subjects. It is a question in that case of the level of analysis of your inference. If you are collecting a whole bunch of blogs and doing a content analysis to talk about bloggers, i do not think you are necessarily doing human subjects research, but you could be. If you stick to describing the blogs and the interactions of text and what that means about the people that create them that is likely not, but when you talk about an individual creator doing things in the world, then you are. it is the difference between talking about the system or society versus talking about the person. You can use documentary evidence still in researching subjects without creating a human subject, at least that is the way most irb materials read. documentary materials or data already collected and collated by someone else is exempt.
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Andrew Rojecki wrote:
Does conventional IRB policy accept the concept of unobtrusive measures?...
As far as I am able to determine after a fair amount of study, there is no such thing as "conventional IRB policy." -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Communication Studies Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA http://academic.luther.edu/~johnsmar/ ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain
another can of worms Sj since in SL you have the additional reality of in-world avatars not wanting to be named in outside contexts there are layers of confidentiality issues here. r
This connects to an interesting discussion I've had in another context, which has to do with whether, when one is doing research in Second Life, observations of, or interactions with, avatars are observations of or interactions with human subjects. I'm curious to know what others think.
Thanks, Sj
Do avatars really "want," Radhika? Actually this is a very important discussion...the layers that must be sorted through ethically. So many social utility sites now have ToS' that preclude much or all research...individuals in the site may tag themselves as not wishing to be researched...and participants may refuse to be research subjects if asked. How do we sort out what is in and what is out of the research we do...gotta love complexity to be an internet researcher because heaven knows we are surrounded by complexity. Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and IUPUC, Columbus IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com Quoting Radhika Gajjala <radhika@cyberdiva.org>:
another can of worms Sj since in SL you have the additional reality of in-world avatars not wanting to be named in outside contexts there are layers of confidentiality issues here. r
This connects to an interesting discussion I've had in another context, which has to do with whether, when one is doing research in Second Life, observations of, or interactions with, avatars are observations of or interactions with human subjects. I'm curious to know what others think.
Thanks, Sj
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On Mar 8, 2008, at 12:42 AM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
Do avatars really "want," Radhika?
mmm - I can say lots on that - if you mean SL avatars... if you mean Avatars based in scifi If you mean (where to my knowledge the term avatar was taken) Eastern Philosophy/Religions
Oh this was the gist of the big debate on slrl... in second life, I don't research the people... so much as i research the systems of representation in relation to governance and relation to architectures and affordances. The question was.... "When I take pictures of any random person using a building in sl, am I doing human subjects research?' my answer is... no, because it does not matter which avatar/person is doing it, just the action that is being performed. It is much like the observational studies of new york city and chicago where one stands on a street corner and takes pictures whenever one sees something of note. it doesn't matter who does it, just that it is something you want to note. however, that doesn't mean that i'm not using judgment in the selection of materials... I'm not taking pictures of everyone that enters and exists some virtual emporium of elicit action, nor doing studies of people based on their avatar. thus I am consciously avoiding certain situations where I do think one could construct implications for the creation of a human subject. I think Andy points out something significant, in terms of unobtrusive measures... that evidence that is found outside of intervention would be that. The federal guidelines specify the term 'intervention' and I probably too much weight on it, but it is still there and it still has some meaning. I think Steve is trying to point out something fairly significant that was just discussed somewhere else that I just saw and that is... 'to what extent can we take any given representation of a person, however abstract it may be, and relate it to the human subject?' My answer is that since not all interactions/observations of humans in the research context construct those people as human subjects research, then it would be the same in virtual worlds too, only at one more level of abstraction. To me, far too many people forget that documentary evidence, without interaction/intervention, such as standing on a street corner taking notes about who passes in general terms, observations not of specifics but of representations and related evidence, is not creating human subjects, as soon as you intervene beyond being a person scribling on a pad or taking pictures, you may very well be creating human subjects. There is a broad body of research that no one has had any ethical questions about that just watches. Not everyone intervenes, not everyone is constituted as a research subject through observation. On Mar 7, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Steve Jones wrote:
This connects to an interesting discussion I've had in another context, which has to do with whether, when one is doing research in Second Life, observations of, or interactions with, avatars are observations of or interactions with human subjects. I'm curious to know what others think.
Thanks, Sj
On Mar 7, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
I think one could do citation analysis without IRB approval...though I don't know the actual history of that form of research...because the real unit of analysis is the citation. What I see happen most often in these discussion is that the online presence of text, pics, etc is being used as an access point to infer about the humans using the technology...that's human subjects research because the real unit of analysis is the person not the online text, pics, whatever. The online content is an access point to gather information about the people.
I disagree, i think one can research systems and representations of people without creating human subjects. It is a question in that case of the level of analysis of your inference. If you are collecting a whole bunch of blogs and doing a content analysis to talk about bloggers, i do not think you are necessarily doing human subjects research, but you could be. If you stick to describing the blogs and the interactions of text and what that means about the people that create them that is likely not, but when you talk about an individual creator doing things in the world, then you are. it is the difference between talking about the system or society versus talking about the person. You can use documentary evidence still in researching subjects without creating a human subject, at least that is the way most irb materials read. documentary materials or data already collected and collated by someone else is exempt.
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Jeremy Hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu ) Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --Byron
Alecea Standlee wrote:
Dear List Members,
I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical issue that I am trying to work through with my dissertation commitee...
Alecea, You've already received a lot of great advice. What I've found amazing is that many of the people responding have neglected to mention that they are members of the AoIR Ethics Committee, which exists to help people address questions such as yours. The Ethics document, already mentioned above, and the Ethics Committee members, can be very helpful in dealing with your IRB, and as has been noted, in the U.S. it really doesn't matter what your dissertation committee says, the bottom line is what the IRB or HSRB will approve. I won't add much other than a plug for a book I edited awhile back: Online Social Research: Methods, Issues, and Ethics (Digital Formations Series, Vol. 7 – Steve Jones, Series Editor) Edited by Mark D. Johns, Shing-Ling Sarina Chen, and G. Jon Hall, Peter Lang Publishers, New York © 2004 ISBN 0-8204-6101-6 Nick Jankowski has already noted his book, which is a little newer and a bit cheaper (it's hard to beat "free!"). There's lots of literature and lots of help available, so I'm glad you asked! -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Communication Studies Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA http://academic.luther.edu/~johnsmar/ ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain
Dear Elad Segev I have similar interests. If someone could help us, please send some information. Geder Elad Segev <eladseg@gmail.com> escreveu: Dear List Members, I was wondering if anyone knows of postdoc opportunities in the field of new media and Internet research in Germany or Switzerland. You may reply to my personal email below. Many thanks! Elad Segev _______________________________________ Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice Keele University, Staffs ST5 5BG Email: e.segev@keele.ac.uk _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _____________________ Professor Dr. Geder Parzianello Universidade Federal do Maranhão professorgeder@yahoo.com.br (98) 9902-0351 --------------------------------- Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o único sem limite de espaço para armazenamento!
participants (20)
-
Alecea Standlee -
Andrew Herman -
Andrew Rojecki -
Charles Ess -
Charlie Balch -
coopman＠u.washington.edu -
Derek Hansen -
Elad Segev -
Geder Parzianello -
Gordon Carlson -
Heidelberg, Chris -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Jim Porter -
joana ro -
Lois Ann Scheidt -
Mark D. Johns -
mhward -
Nishant Shah -
Radhika Gajjala -
Steve Jones