Conducting qualitative research on Facebook
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 QUT researcher.
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
QUT researcher. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org <http://aoir.org> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org <http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org>
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ <http://www.aoir.org/>
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
QUT researcher. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org <http://aoir.org> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org <http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org>
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ <http://www.aoir.org/>
_______________________________________________ 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/
-- 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.
while agreeing with previous commenters, I would also like to add that translating from another language often gives an additional layer of security (it makes it more difficult to track the quotes back to the original). If you're going to publish in English, as often is the case, doing fieldwork in a different language adds to the safety. cheers, dj On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 9:52 AM, Sarah Quinton <sequinton@brookes.ac.uk> wrote:
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
QUT researcher. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org <http://aoir.org> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org <http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org>
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ <http://www.aoir.org/>
_______________________________________________ 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/
-- 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. _______________________________________________ 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/
-- ________________________________________________________ <http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl/> Dariusz Jemielniak, Ph.D. Professor of Management Chair of MINDS (Management in Networked and Digital Societies) Department Kozminski University http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl <http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl/> associate faculty at Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University *Recent articles:* - Dariusz Jemielniak, Maciej Wilamowski (2017) Cultural Diversity of Quality of Information on Wikipedias <http://crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/cultures%20of%20wikipedias.pdf> *Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology* 68: 10. 2460–2470. - Dariusz Jemielniak (2016) Wikimedia Movement Governance: The Limits of A-Hierarchical Organization <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/wikimedia_governance.pdf> *Journal of Organizational Change Management *29: 3. 361-378. - Dariusz Jemielniak, Eduard Aibar (2016) Bridging the Gap Between Wikipedia and Academia <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/bridging.pdf> *Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology* 67: 7. 1773-1776. - Dariusz Jemielniak (2016) Breaking the Glass Ceiling on Wikipedia <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/glass-ceiling.pdf> *Feminist Review *113: 1. 103-108. - Tadeusz Chełkowski, Peter Gloor, Dariusz Jemielniak (2016) Inequalities in Open Source Software Development: Analysis of Contributor’s Commits in Apache Software Foundation Projects <http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0152976.PDF> , *PLoS ONE* 11: 4. e0152976.
Dear Virginia, You will need consent if you plan to use any type of data that can be traced back to a person. This is highly likely in the case of quotes, videos, images, etc. Ethics on Facebook are rather complicated as their privacy policy is rather strict, so you need to be very careful regarding the privacy settings on what you plan to use, even if the content has been marked as public you will need consent as all data us owned by the person. Best regards, ISABEL GALVIS, M.A. Google Certified Professional | Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador Microsoft adExcellence Member | Bing Advertisement Professional E: isabelgalvis@gmail.com | LI: Linkedin.com/isabelgalvis | T: @isabelgalvis PhD Student | Coventry University -----Original Message----- From: Air-L [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Virginia Balfour Sent: 07 February 2018 05:39 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Conducting qualitative research on Facebook 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 QUT researcher. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faoir.org&d... Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistserv.a... Join the Association of Internet Researchers: https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aoir.o... Gold rating for teaching excellence Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Ranked No.12 UK university The Guardian University Guide 2018 UK’s highest ranking new university The Guardian and the Complete University Guides 2018 Top 6 for Student Experience The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018 NOTICE This message and any files transmitted with it is intended for the addressee only and may contain information that is confidential or privileged. Unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you are not the addressee, you should not read, copy, disclose or otherwise use this message, except for the purpose of delivery to the addressee. Any views or opinions expressed within this e-mail are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Coventry University.
Hi Virginia, I have an article in which I discuss the ethics issues you are interested in related to researching how trauma processing happens in different types of Facebook groups (public, closed), in the historical context, groups like ‘The Holocaust and my family’. http://hunghist.org/84-abstract/434-2017-2-menyhert <http://hunghist.org/84-abstract/434-2017-2-menyhert> Best regards, Anna ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dr. Anna Menyhért Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Research Fellow University of Amsterdam a.menyhert@uva.nl, menyhertanna@gmail.com www.menyhertanna.hu https://amsterdam.academia.edu/AnnaMenyhért http://www.traprodig.humanities.uva.nl
2018. febr. 7. dátummal, 6:38 időpontban Virginia Balfour <virginiabalfour@hotmail.com> írta:
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
QUT researcher. _______________________________________________ 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/
participants (6)
-
Anna Menyhért -
Dariusz Jemielniak -
Isabel Galvis -
Sarah Quinton -
Sharon Greenfield -
Virginia Balfour