Re: [Air-L] public/private [part 1 of 2]
Ed, It's interesting to me that you say you have no agenda but you chose to reply to a private message in public...and you quoted my email without asking me in advance. Very interesting You have now wound back to my first email, where I addressed the confusion about the unit of analysis. If the unit of analysis is the webpage only, then of course application to an IRB is required in the US. But it will, most likely be exempt level research. You are not analyzing people, you are analyzing the artifacts they produce...the text. And publicly available text, etc. is similar to a letter to the editor in any major newspaper...the producer placed the work in a publicly accessible location and unlocked it for the standard uses allowed under the law. Do the producers always know that's what they did...of course not...and in those cases we educate. As Marj has said, ethnographic work is different, assuming that you are "participating" as well as "observing" and everything is in a publicly accessible local. I sincerely hope that the newbie researchers reading this thread made note of an earlier post that pointed out the sometimes dichotomous definitions of "public" and "private". Sometimes the term "publicly accessible" is clearer...in that a mall may be private property but the owners of that private property are running a publicly assessable establishment and have very few reasons they can legally ask someone to leave. Another example would be that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater but you can study the way people sit physically while they are there, and that too would be exempt level research...as long as you are only observing. Ed, your most recent email appears to be saying that you are concerned that research is being conducted without IRB review. I think you will find that others share that concern. However no where in your previous posts do I find that being stated as your primary concern...nor do I find the concern about IRB oversight being clearly articulated. It's a very different discussion than saying that the creator's of intellectual property have final say on that properties use in any situation...assuming they didn't post their blogs with an explicit statement that research is allowed. And finally, neither here or in my private email to you did I express a need for guidance. Your "mind-reading" decision that a title makes you the "expert" and my lack of that title makes me the "learner" is interesting, and while I can't address your qualifications I can address my own...and I am not in need of guidance related to the material I have discussed here or in my private email. While it is wonderful that AoIR and other listservs reach out to assist students who ask for help, it is also best for those who answer to do more than express their opinions...opinions alone are very unhelpful to grad students as many of them are looking for "the right" answer and may confuse an opinion with the actual process. I have to note, that in a previous email I commented on the problems with "mind-reading" subjects rather than asking them about their expectation of privacy. Mind-reading is never good, and it is always both a controlling behavior and one that places the mind-reader above the mind-read person...the mind-reader knows best. I for one do not believe that my studies, and my good fortune in both being able to take the time for PhD studies or for having the access to funding to gain my degree, gives me some superior insight into another persons thinking, asking is always best. Now if a blogger posted "NO RESEARCH HERE." I would have to think twice before I would know if I would use that site in my research. No doubt I would be consulting with some of my colleagues on this list who are experts in ethics, law, and human subjects work. I would have remained in this "public/private" discussion, prior to you calling me out, had I felt that it was actually an academic discussion...rather then one person using a baseball bat to force their "opinion" on others. As I have said previously in this thread, it's like watching someone who thinks they are arguing against the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies with people who are supporting that research...when no one here is supporting harm to subjects or the creators of the artifacts we study. I want to caution anyone new to the "human subjects" debate, that when you read IRB rules or any Human Subjects legal documentation please remember these documents were created, in very legalistic language, to primarily address historic problems with medical and psychological research. I am in no way saying they do not apply to social science research, rather that they don't fit us neatly...hence so many of these discussions must be had as we work through how old rules apply to new situations. I would also caution new researchers to talk to experts, and to read published ethical and IRB essays and research so they know the prevailing point of view...don't just take a faculty members word for it, you need to take the time to learn it yourself, because you will be held responsible for your own research ethics. 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
Thank you for your reply here. Here is a personal anecdote ... I keep a few blogs because I use the blog format as a writing tool. Although I do allow comments, I do not actively solicit commenters (ie. I do not 'blog' by visiting others' blogs and dropping comments on their sites to get them to visit mine). Nor do I often respond to any comments that may get left on my blogs (ie. I do not encourage blog traffic or blog noise). The main purpose of my blogs is to use them as writing tools, for me to 'see' my writing 'published' for the sake of playing with literary form and visual design. My blogs are for me, even if, every once in a while, someone discovers them. But based on your comments, I will now add a disclaimer to the bottom of my blog which states "No research here". It would be highly unethical to me if any researcher quietly observed my blogs for the sake of "research". Like someone peering through an open window in the name of research and claiming the contents of the window as 'public domain' (even though I do not publish my actual name anywhere on my blogs, nor do I write any questionable material that names or harms others). If a researcher were to reveal their presence and their research agenda to me, I would say no without hesitation. If they refused, I would immediately remove my blogs. The point is, you can't assume anything about anything in virtual space. respectfully, jcu ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lois Ann Scheidt" <lscheidt@indiana.edu> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 7:21 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] public/private [part 1 of 2]
Ed, It's interesting to me that you say you have no agenda but you chose to reply to a private message in public...and you quoted my email without asking me in advance. Very interesting
You have now wound back to my first email, where I addressed the confusion about the unit of analysis. If the unit of analysis is the webpage only, then of course application to an IRB is required in the US. But it will, most likely be exempt level research. You are not analyzing people, you are analyzing the artifacts they produce...the text. And publicly available text, etc. is similar to a letter to the editor in any major newspaper...the producer placed the work in a publicly accessible location and unlocked it for the standard uses allowed under the law. Do the producers always know that's what they did...of course not...and in those cases we educate.
As Marj has said, ethnographic work is different, assuming that you are "participating" as well as "observing" and everything is in a publicly accessible local. I sincerely hope that the newbie researchers reading this thread made note of an earlier post that pointed out the sometimes dichotomous definitions of "public" and "private". Sometimes the term "publicly accessible" is clearer...in that a mall may be private property but the owners of that private property are running a publicly assessable establishment and have very few reasons they can legally ask someone to leave. Another example would be that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater but you can study the way people sit physically while they are there, and that too would be exempt level research...as long as you are only observing.
Ed, your most recent email appears to be saying that you are concerned that research is being conducted without IRB review. I think you will find that others share that concern. However no where in your previous posts do I find that being stated as your primary concern...nor do I find the concern about IRB oversight being clearly articulated. It's a very different discussion than saying that the creator's of intellectual property have final say on that properties use in any situation...assuming they didn't post their blogs with an explicit statement that research is allowed.
And finally, neither here or in my private email to you did I express a need for guidance. Your "mind-reading" decision that a title makes you the "expert" and my lack of that title makes me the "learner" is interesting, and while I can't address your qualifications I can address my own...and I am not in need of guidance related to the material I have discussed here or in my private email. While it is wonderful that AoIR and other listservs reach out to assist students who ask for help, it is also best for those who answer to do more than express their opinions...opinions alone are very unhelpful to grad students as many of them are looking for "the right" answer and may confuse an opinion with the actual process.
I have to note, that in a previous email I commented on the problems with "mind-reading" subjects rather than asking them about their expectation of privacy. Mind-reading is never good, and it is always both a controlling behavior and one that places the mind-reader above the mind-read person...the mind-reader knows best. I for one do not believe that my studies, and my good fortune in both being able to take the time for PhD studies or for having the access to funding to gain my degree, gives me some superior insight into another persons thinking, asking is always best. Now if a blogger posted "NO RESEARCH HERE." I would have to think twice before I would know if I would use that site in my research. No doubt I would be consulting with some of my colleagues on this list who are experts in ethics, law, and human subjects work.
I would have remained in this "public/private" discussion, prior to you calling me out, had I felt that it was actually an academic discussion...rather then one person using a baseball bat to force their "opinion" on others. As I have said previously in this thread, it's like watching someone who thinks they are arguing against the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies with people who are supporting that research...when no one here is supporting harm to subjects or the creators of the artifacts we study.
I want to caution anyone new to the "human subjects" debate, that when you read IRB rules or any Human Subjects legal documentation please remember these documents were created, in very legalistic language, to primarily address historic problems with medical and psychological research. I am in no way saying they do not apply to social science research, rather that they don't fit us neatly...hence so many of these discussions must be had as we work through how old rules apply to new situations. I would also caution new researchers to talk to experts, and to read published ethical and IRB essays and research so they know the prevailing point of view...don't just take a faculty members word for it, you need to take the time to learn it yourself, because you will be held responsible for your own research ethics.
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
_______________________________________________ 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/
First, let me note that someone "peering through a window," as you've implied into a private space like a home, would not be exempt level research. It would not gain that distinction because first such peering is illegal in the US...trespassing, peeping-Tom's, etc. But if you had the same conversations or wore the same clothes - whatever the researcher was studying - in your local Walmart, then it's your decision to be in public and so that would be open to research. I'm sorry if this is an inappropriate question, but if you are the only consumer of your work you expect to see using your cite and you seem very offended by the idea that anyone - including a researcher - could appropeiate your work for whatever is legal under local law, then why do you post your multiple blogs publicly? 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 jcu <jcu@execulink.com>:
Thank you for your reply here. Here is a personal anecdote ...
I keep a few blogs because I use the blog format as a writing tool. Although I do allow comments, I do not actively solicit commenters (ie. I do not 'blog' by visiting others' blogs and dropping comments on their sites to get them to visit mine). Nor do I often respond to any comments that may get left on my blogs (ie. I do not encourage blog traffic or blog noise). The main purpose of my blogs is to use them as writing tools, for me to 'see' my writing 'published' for the sake of playing with literary form and visual design.
My blogs are for me, even if, every once in a while, someone discovers them. But based on your comments, I will now add a disclaimer to the bottom of my blog which states "No research here".
It would be highly unethical to me if any researcher quietly observed my blogs for the sake of "research". Like someone peering through an open window in the name of research and claiming the contents of the window as 'public domain' (even though I do not publish my actual name anywhere on my blogs, nor do I write any questionable material that names or harms others). If a researcher were to reveal their presence and their research agenda to me, I would say no without hesitation. If they refused, I would immediately remove my blogs.
The point is, you can't assume anything about anything in virtual space.
respectfully, jcu
----- Original Message ----- From: "Lois Ann Scheidt" <lscheidt@indiana.edu> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 7:21 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] public/private [part 1 of 2]
Ed, It's interesting to me that you say you have no agenda but you chose to reply to a private message in public...and you quoted my email without asking me in advance. Very interesting
You have now wound back to my first email, where I addressed the confusion about the unit of analysis. If the unit of analysis is the webpage only, then of course application to an IRB is required in the US. But it will, most likely be exempt level research. You are not analyzing people, you are analyzing the artifacts they produce...the text. And publicly available text, etc. is similar to a letter to the editor in any major newspaper...the producer placed the work in a publicly accessible location and unlocked it for the standard uses allowed under the law. Do the producers always know that's what they did...of course not...and in those cases we educate.
As Marj has said, ethnographic work is different, assuming that you are "participating" as well as "observing" and everything is in a publicly accessible local. I sincerely hope that the newbie researchers reading this thread made note of an earlier post that pointed out the sometimes dichotomous definitions of "public" and "private". Sometimes the term "publicly accessible" is clearer...in that a mall may be private property but the owners of that private property are running a publicly assessable establishment and have very few reasons they can legally ask someone to leave. Another example would be that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater but you can study the way people sit physically while they are there, and that too would be exempt level research...as long as you are only observing.
Ed, your most recent email appears to be saying that you are concerned that research is being conducted without IRB review. I think you will find that others share that concern. However no where in your previous posts do I find that being stated as your primary concern...nor do I find the concern about IRB oversight being clearly articulated. It's a very different discussion than saying that the creator's of intellectual property have final say on that properties use in any situation...assuming they didn't post their blogs with an explicit statement that research is allowed.
And finally, neither here or in my private email to you did I express a need for guidance. Your "mind-reading" decision that a title makes you the "expert" and my lack of that title makes me the "learner" is interesting, and while I can't address your qualifications I can address my own...and I am not in need of guidance related to the material I have discussed here or in my private email. While it is wonderful that AoIR and other listservs reach out to assist students who ask for help, it is also best for those who answer to do more than express their opinions...opinions alone are very unhelpful to grad students as many of them are looking for "the right" answer and may confuse an opinion with the actual process.
I have to note, that in a previous email I commented on the problems with "mind-reading" subjects rather than asking them about their expectation of privacy. Mind-reading is never good, and it is always both a controlling behavior and one that places the mind-reader above the mind-read person...the mind-reader knows best. I for one do not believe that my studies, and my good fortune in both being able to take the time for PhD studies or for having the access to funding to gain my degree, gives me some superior insight into another persons thinking, asking is always best. Now if a blogger posted "NO RESEARCH HERE." I would have to think twice before I would know if I would use that site in my research. No doubt I would be consulting with some of my colleagues on this list who are experts in ethics, law, and human subjects work.
I would have remained in this "public/private" discussion, prior to you calling me out, had I felt that it was actually an academic discussion...rather then one person using a baseball bat to force their "opinion" on others. As I have said previously in this thread, it's like watching someone who thinks they are arguing against the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies with people who are supporting that research...when no one here is supporting harm to subjects or the creators of the artifacts we study.
I want to caution anyone new to the "human subjects" debate, that when you read IRB rules or any Human Subjects legal documentation please remember these documents were created, in very legalistic language, to primarily address historic problems with medical and psychological research. I am in no way saying they do not apply to social science research, rather that they don't fit us neatly...hence so many of these discussions must be had as we work through how old rules apply to new situations. I would also caution new researchers to talk to experts, and to read published ethical and IRB essays and research so they know the prevailing point of view...don't just take a faculty members word for it, you need to take the time to learn it yourself, because you will be held responsible for your own research ethics.
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
_______________________________________________ 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/
_______________________________________________ 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/
HI Lois, I appreciate your thoughts here. I have already stated that I use the form of the blog as a writing tool. There is more than one way to use a blog space (ie. everyone has assumed that it only serves one purpose, that of a social networking tool, because that is their research agenda). Since my work in print has a visual element, since its visual form matters to me, I see it in a blog format and can play with layout and design, tweeking it on a daily basis as I reread it there/ rethink it, in a way that word programs don't allow. By the same token, if a tourist takes my photo without my permission, I usually ask them to delete it. Usually they do. Ethics boards and rules, or not. Thanks for your reply. jcu From: "Lois Ann Scheidt" Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 8:22 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] public/private [part 1 of 2]
First, let me note that someone "peering through a window," as you've implied into a private space like a home, would not be exempt level research. It would not gain that distinction because first such peering is illegal in the US...trespassing, peeping-Tom's, etc. But if you had the same conversations or wore the same clothes - whatever the researcher was studying - in your local Walmart, then it's your decision to be in public and so that would be open to research.
I'm sorry if this is an inappropriate question, but if you are the only consumer of your work you expect to see using your cite and you seem very offended by the idea that anyone - including a researcher - could appropeiate your work for whatever is legal under local law, then why do you post your multiple blogs publicly?
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 jcu >
Thank you for your reply here. Here is a personal anecdote ...
I keep a few blogs because I use the blog format as a writing tool. Although I do allow comments, I do not actively solicit commenters (ie. I do not 'blog' by visiting others' blogs and dropping comments on their sites to get them to visit mine). Nor do I often respond to any comments that may get left on my blogs (ie. I do not encourage blog traffic or blog noise). The main purpose of my blogs is to use them as writing tools, for me to 'see' my writing 'published' for the sake of playing with literary form and visual design.
My blogs are for me, even if, every once in a while, someone discovers them. But based on your comments, I will now add a disclaimer to the bottom of my blog which states "No research here".
It would be highly unethical to me if any researcher quietly observed my blogs for the sake of "research". Like someone peering through an open window in the name of research and claiming the contents of the window as 'public domain' (even though I do not publish my actual name anywhere on my blogs, nor do I write any questionable material that names or harms others). If a researcher were to reveal their presence and their research agenda to me, I would say no without hesitation. If they refused, I would immediately remove my blogs.
The point is, you can't assume anything about anything in virtual space.
respectfully, jcu
From: "Lois Ann Scheidt" >> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 7:21 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] public/private [part 1 of 2]
Ed, It's interesting to me that you say you have no agenda but you chose to reply to a private message in public...and you quoted my email without asking me in advance. Very interesting
You have now wound back to my first email, where I addressed the confusion about the unit of analysis. If the unit of analysis is the webpage only, then of course application to an IRB is required in the US. But it will, most likely be exempt level research. You are not analyzing people, you are analyzing the artifacts they produce...the text. And publicly available text, etc. is similar to a letter to the editor in any major newspaper...the producer placed the work in a publicly accessible location and unlocked it for the standard uses allowed under the law. Do the producers always know that's what they did...of course not...and in those cases we educate.
As Marj has said, ethnographic work is different, assuming that you are "participating" as well as "observing" and everything is in a publicly accessible local. I sincerely hope that the newbie researchers reading this thread made note of an earlier post that pointed out the sometimes dichotomous definitions of "public" and "private". Sometimes the term "publicly accessible" is clearer...in that a mall may be private property but the owners of that private property are running a publicly assessable establishment and have very few reasons they can legally ask someone to leave. Another example would be that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater but you can study the way people sit physically while they are there, and that too would be exempt level research...as long as you are only observing.
Ed, your most recent email appears to be saying that you are concerned that research is being conducted without IRB review. I think you will find that others share that concern. However no where in your previous posts do I find that being stated as your primary concern...nor do I find the concern about IRB oversight being clearly articulated. It's a very different discussion than saying that the creator's of intellectual property have final say on that properties use in any situation...assuming they didn't post their blogs with an explicit statement that research is allowed.
And finally, neither here or in my private email to you did I express a need for guidance. Your "mind-reading" decision that a title makes you the "expert" and my lack of that title makes me the "learner" is interesting, and while I can't address your qualifications I can address my own...and I am not in need of guidance related to the material I have discussed here or in my private email. While it is wonderful that AoIR and other listservs reach out to assist students who ask for help, it is also best for those who answer to do more than express their opinions...opinions alone are very unhelpful to grad students as many of them are looking for "the right" answer and may confuse an opinion with the actual process.
I have to note, that in a previous email I commented on the problems with "mind-reading" subjects rather than asking them about their expectation of privacy. Mind-reading is never good, and it is always both a controlling behavior and one that places the mind-reader above the mind-read person...the mind-reader knows best. I for one do not believe that my studies, and my good fortune in both being able to take the time for PhD studies or for having the access to funding to gain my degree, gives me some superior insight into another persons thinking, asking is always best. Now if a blogger posted "NO RESEARCH HERE." I would have to think twice before I would know if I would use that site in my research. No doubt I would be consulting with some of my colleagues on this list who are experts in ethics, law, and human subjects work.
I would have remained in this "public/private" discussion, prior to you calling me out, had I felt that it was actually an academic discussion...rather then one person using a baseball bat to force their "opinion" on others. As I have said previously in this thread, it's like watching someone who thinks they are arguing against the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies with people who are supporting that research...when no one here is supporting harm to subjects or the creators of the artifacts we study.
I want to caution anyone new to the "human subjects" debate, that when you read IRB rules or any Human Subjects legal documentation please remember these documents were created, in very legalistic language, to primarily address historic problems with medical and psychological research. I am in no way saying they do not apply to social science research, rather that they don't fit us neatly...hence so many of these discussions must be had as we work through how old rules apply to new situations. I would also caution new researchers to talk to experts, and to read published ethical and IRB essays and research so they know the prevailing point of view...don't just take a faculty members word for it, you need to take the time to learn it yourself, because you will be held responsible for your own research ethics.
Lois Ann Scheidt
I would advise you to remove your blogs then because it is very likely that if it is linked to anywhere or hosted on a major blogging platform that it is in one of the research compediums of blogs. if we can find it through google blogsearch or technorati, then it is likely it is in one or more research collections. it is not that you are putting up a window... it is that you are sending out broadsheets and posters on the fence, on the side of your house, probably into public mailboxes, etc. etc.. i don't have to look into the window to see what you've done, i can take photos from the street, comment on the architecture, etc. If i a disclaimer won't really solve your issue either, it might be respected, but only if you do it in a machine readable way. a robot.txt file excluding all search engines will go much farther than a disclaimer. On Aug 13, 2007, at 7:15 AM, jcu wrote:
Thank you for your reply here. Here is a personal anecdote ...
I keep a few blogs because I use the blog format as a writing tool. Although I do allow comments, I do not actively solicit commenters (ie. I do not 'blog' by visiting others' blogs and dropping comments on their sites to get them to visit mine). Nor do I often respond to any comments that may get left on my blogs (ie. I do not encourage blog traffic or blog noise). The main purpose of my blogs is to use them as writing tools, for me to 'see' my writing 'published' for the sake of playing with literary form and visual design.
My blogs are for me, even if, every once in a while, someone discovers them. But based on your comments, I will now add a disclaimer to the bottom of my blog which states "No research here".
It would be highly unethical to me if any researcher quietly observed my blogs for the sake of "research". Like someone peering through an open window in the name of research and claiming the contents of the window as 'public domain' (even though I do not publish my actual name anywhere on my blogs, nor do I write any questionable material that names or harms others). If a researcher were to reveal their presence and their research agenda to me, I would say no without hesitation. If they refused, I would immediately remove my blogs.
The point is, you can't assume anything about anything in virtual space.
respectfully, jcu
----- Original Message ----- From: "Lois Ann Scheidt" <lscheidt@indiana.edu> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 7:21 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] public/private [part 1 of 2]
Ed, It's interesting to me that you say you have no agenda but you chose to reply to a private message in public...and you quoted my email without asking me in advance. Very interesting
You have now wound back to my first email, where I addressed the confusion about the unit of analysis. If the unit of analysis is the webpage only, then of course application to an IRB is required in the US. But it will, most likely be exempt level research. You are not analyzing people, you are analyzing the artifacts they produce...the text. And publicly available text, etc. is similar to a letter to the editor in any major newspaper...the producer placed the work in a publicly accessible location and unlocked it for the standard uses allowed under the law. Do the producers always know that's what they did...of course not...and in those cases we educate.
As Marj has said, ethnographic work is different, assuming that you are "participating" as well as "observing" and everything is in a publicly accessible local. I sincerely hope that the newbie researchers reading this thread made note of an earlier post that pointed out the sometimes dichotomous definitions of "public" and "private". Sometimes the term "publicly accessible" is clearer...in that a mall may be private property but the owners of that private property are running a publicly assessable establishment and have very few reasons they can legally ask someone to leave. Another example would be that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater but you can study the way people sit physically while they are there, and that too would be exempt level research...as long as you are only observing.
Ed, your most recent email appears to be saying that you are concerned that research is being conducted without IRB review. I think you will find that others share that concern. However no where in your previous posts do I find that being stated as your primary concern...nor do I find the concern about IRB oversight being clearly articulated. It's a very different discussion than saying that the creator's of intellectual property have final say on that properties use in any situation...assuming they didn't post their blogs with an explicit statement that research is allowed.
And finally, neither here or in my private email to you did I express a need for guidance. Your "mind-reading" decision that a title makes you the "expert" and my lack of that title makes me the "learner" is interesting, and while I can't address your qualifications I can address my own...and I am not in need of guidance related to the material I have discussed here or in my private email. While it is wonderful that AoIR and other listservs reach out to assist students who ask for help, it is also best for those who answer to do more than express their opinions...opinions alone are very unhelpful to grad students as many of them are looking for "the right" answer and may confuse an opinion with the actual process.
I have to note, that in a previous email I commented on the problems with "mind-reading" subjects rather than asking them about their expectation of privacy. Mind-reading is never good, and it is always both a controlling behavior and one that places the mind-reader above the mind-read person...the mind-reader knows best. I for one do not believe that my studies, and my good fortune in both being able to take the time for PhD studies or for having the access to funding to gain my degree, gives me some superior insight into another persons thinking, asking is always best. Now if a blogger posted "NO RESEARCH HERE." I would have to think twice before I would know if I would use that site in my research. No doubt I would be consulting with some of my colleagues on this list who are experts in ethics, law, and human subjects work.
I would have remained in this "public/private" discussion, prior to you calling me out, had I felt that it was actually an academic discussion...rather then one person using a baseball bat to force their "opinion" on others. As I have said previously in this thread, it's like watching someone who thinks they are arguing against the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies with people who are supporting that research...when no one here is supporting harm to subjects or the creators of the artifacts we study.
I want to caution anyone new to the "human subjects" debate, that when you read IRB rules or any Human Subjects legal documentation please remember these documents were created, in very legalistic language, to primarily address historic problems with medical and psychological research. I am in no way saying they do not apply to social science research, rather that they don't fit us neatly...hence so many of these discussions must be had as we work through how old rules apply to new situations. I would also caution new researchers to talk to experts, and to read published ethical and IRB essays and research so they know the prevailing point of view...don't just take a faculty members word for it, you need to take the time to learn it yourself, because you will be held responsible for your own research ethics.
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
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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) wiki.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.stswiki.org/ sts wiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ Learning Inquiry-the journal http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/ Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series
I find this discussion fascinating on a level of the mediums that we choose to use to express information. If we get right down to it, if we just want to write and express ourselves then why not just use a word document. If we want to be heard and get feedback we use a blog or similar format. Has there been any research on what audiences bloggers etc really think they are reaching, want to reach etc? The rift between the the ideal audience and the actual audience? On 8/13/07, Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
I would advise you to remove your blogs then because it is very likely that if it is linked to anywhere or hosted on a major blogging platform that it is in one of the research compediums of blogs. if we can find it through google blogsearch or technorati, then it is likely it is in one or more research collections.
it is not that you are putting up a window... it is that you are sending out broadsheets and posters on the fence, on the side of your house, probably into public mailboxes, etc. etc.. i don't have to look into the window to see what you've done, i can take photos from the street, comment on the architecture, etc. If i
a disclaimer won't really solve your issue either, it might be respected, but only if you do it in a machine readable way. a robot.txt file excluding all search engines will go much farther than a disclaimer.
-- Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins Director of Emerging Technologies www.MediaSauce.com www.ubernoggin.com http://www.intellagirl.com http://secondlife.intellagirl.com Yahoo: Intellagirl Skype: Intellagirl SecondLife: Intellagirl Tully
I do this with my classes sometimes but nothing formal yet. I have an "audience" exercise in which I've asked them to write a blog post about something and then I have them all look at each other's papers and read them as if they were all different kinds of people: their mother, their grandmother, their preacher, their best friend, their potential employer, their potential spouse... etc. Most of my 18-20-year-old students right now don't expect that their *friends* will read their blogs; they expect their audience to be "the world" and they are always surprised that it's more often local. Typically, one or two students in every class -- usually those who already blog -- get very angry with me over this assignment. They really don't like me pointing out that their grandmother or their preacher might read their blog, LOL. I expect that their expectations will change over the next 5 or so years, so maybe there's the hook I need to do this formally. :-D. Deanya Sarah Robbins wrote:
I find this discussion fascinating on a level of the mediums that we choose to use to express information. If we get right down to it, if we just want to write and express ourselves then why not just use a word document. If we want to be heard and get feedback we use a blog or similar format. Has there been any research on what audiences bloggers etc really think they are reaching, want to reach etc? The rift between the the ideal audience and the actual audience?
On 8/13/07, Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
I would advise you to remove your blogs then because it is very likely that if it is linked to anywhere or hosted on a major blogging platform that it is in one of the research compediums of blogs. if we can find it through google blogsearch or technorati, then it is likely it is in one or more research collections.
it is not that you are putting up a window... it is that you are sending out broadsheets and posters on the fence, on the side of your house, probably into public mailboxes, etc. etc.. i don't have to look into the window to see what you've done, i can take photos from the street, comment on the architecture, etc. If i
a disclaimer won't really solve your issue either, it might be respected, but only if you do it in a machine readable way. a robot.txt file excluding all search engines will go much farther than a disclaimer.
My first thought was that if jcu is genuinely interested in blogging in private, yes, use a freaking word processor offline, as Sarah noted. Failing that, at least place the blog behind a password. This is a /very /trivial procedure (just log in your cpanel and add a password to the blog directory). If the blog author does not do even this, I'm sorry, I simply do not believe there's an interest in privacy. Stop having sex in front of the huge picture window in the living room, curtains thrown open. (You can pry my real-world analogies from my cold, dead hands.) Conor Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
I would advise you to remove your blogs then because it is very likely that if it is linked to anywhere or hosted on a major blogging platform that it is in one of the research compediums of blogs. if we can find it through google blogsearch or technorati, then it is likely it is in one or more research collections.
it is not that you are putting up a window... it is that you are sending out broadsheets and posters on the fence, on the side of your house, probably into public mailboxes, etc. etc.. i don't have to look into the window to see what you've done, i can take photos from the street, comment on the architecture, etc. If i
a disclaimer won't really solve your issue either, it might be respected, but only if you do it in a machine readable way. a robot.txt file excluding all search engines will go much farther than a disclaimer. On Aug 13, 2007, at 7:15 AM, jcu wrote:
Thank you for your reply here. Here is a personal anecdote ...
I keep a few blogs because I use the blog format as a writing tool. Although I do allow comments, I do not actively solicit commenters (ie. I do not 'blog' by visiting others' blogs and dropping comments on their sites to get them to visit mine). Nor do I often respond to any comments that may get left on my blogs (ie. I do not encourage blog traffic or blog noise). The main purpose of my blogs is to use them as writing tools, for me to 'see' my writing 'published' for the sake of playing with literary form and visual design.
My blogs are for me, even if, every once in a while, someone discovers them. But based on your comments, I will now add a disclaimer to the bottom of my blog which states "No research here".
It would be highly unethical to me if any researcher quietly observed my blogs for the sake of "research". Like someone peering through an open window in the name of research and claiming the contents of the window as 'public domain' (even though I do not publish my actual name anywhere on my blogs, nor do I write any questionable material that names or harms others). If a researcher were to reveal their presence and their research agenda to me, I would say no without hesitation. If they refused, I would immediately remove my blogs.
The point is, you can't assume anything about anything in virtual space.
respectfully, jcu
----- Original Message ----- From: "Lois Ann Scheidt" <lscheidt@indiana.edu> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 7:21 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] public/private [part 1 of 2]
jeremy hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu)
wiki.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.stswiki.org/ sts wiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ Learning Inquiry-the journal http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/ Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series
_______________________________________________ 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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And don't forget archiving, that a publicly accessible webpage is likely to be archived in the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php) or as some of us old Saturday Morning Cartoon watchers like to call it...The Wayback Machine. 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>:
I would advise you to remove your blogs then because it is very likely that if it is linked to anywhere or hosted on a major blogging platform that it is in one of the research compediums of blogs. if we can find it through google blogsearch or technorati, then it is likely it is in one or more research collections.
it is not that you are putting up a window... it is that you are sending out broadsheets and posters on the fence, on the side of your house, probably into public mailboxes, etc. etc.. i don't have to look into the window to see what you've done, i can take photos from the street, comment on the architecture, etc. If i
a disclaimer won't really solve your issue either, it might be respected, but only if you do it in a machine readable way. a robot.txt file excluding all search engines will go much farther than a disclaimer.
This has been an interesting discussion, and mention of IA's Wayback Machine prompts interesting questions which I'm sure others on the list can help answer: (a) Are there other media forms (current or historical) where publishing content means that it is automatically scanned and archived by external aggregators (search spiders, Internet Archive, etc)? [If I posted a note on "The Wall" at Yale Law School, no one routinely takes a snapshot of the wall to keep a permanent record of it, right?] (b) If examples for (a) exist, are typical publishers of said content aware that their works are being aggregated and archived in such a way? Would a new user know this? Are they notified? [My concern here is that while many realize that search engines might crawl their content, few realize they keep a cached copy, and even fewer realize that even deleted content is archived by Wayback Machine] (c) Also, if examples of (a) exist, what means are provided to prevent such automatic archiving? Is it opt-in or opt-out? How technically proficient must one be? [Concern here is that even if you know about Internet Archive, you have to be proficient with robots.txt standards in order to keep them out] (d) Given (a), how can someone remove past items from such archives? [Wayback Machine will remove all domain-specific content already in its archive if you place a robots.txt file to block it going forward] I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible. Just because bits don't degrade like paper doesn't mean they -must- persist, does it? Keep up the good discussion, michael ----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer@nyu.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org On Aug 13, 2007, at 11:36 AM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
And don't forget archiving, that a publicly accessible webpage is likely to be archived in the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php) or as some of us old Saturday Morning Cartoon watchers like to call it...The Wayback Machine.
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>:
I would advise you to remove your blogs then because it is very likely that if it is linked to anywhere or hosted on a major blogging platform that it is in one of the research compediums of blogs. if we can find it through google blogsearch or technorati, then it is likely it is in one or more research collections.
it is not that you are putting up a window... it is that you are sending out broadsheets and posters on the fence, on the side of your house, probably into public mailboxes, etc. etc.. i don't have to look into the window to see what you've done, i can take photos from the street, comment on the architecture, etc. If i
a disclaimer won't really solve your issue either, it might be respected, but only if you do it in a machine readable way. a robot.txt file excluding all search engines will go much farther than a disclaimer.
_______________________________________________ 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/
On Aug 13, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Michael Zimmer wrote:
This has been an interesting discussion, and mention of IA's Wayback Machine prompts interesting questions which I'm sure others on the list can help answer:
(a) Are there other media forms (current or historical) where publishing content means that it is automatically scanned and archived by external aggregators (search spiders, Internet Archive, etc)? [If I posted a note on "The Wall" at Yale Law School, no one routinely takes a snapshot of the wall to keep a permanent record of it, right?]
Journals, newpapers, magazines come to mind as archived externally and internally.
(b) If examples for (a) exist, are typical publishers of said content aware that their works are being aggregated and archived in such a way?
yes, and they try to get as much profit out of the arrangement as they can, I think, but alas... it isn't always such an arrangement.
Would a new user know this? Are they notified?
In the case of Newspapers, there were a few court cases a few years ago dealing with the NYT archiving and distributing itself online, but i don't recall anyone complaining about third party distribution such as through firstsearch or similar tools. I think that there is now a standard contract in place for much of this in the publishing industry.
[My concern here is that while many realize that search engines might crawl their content, few realize they keep a cached copy, and even fewer realize that even deleted content is archived by Wayback Machine]
(c) Also, if examples of (a) exist, what means are provided to prevent such automatic archiving? Is it opt-in or opt-out? How technically proficient must one be? [Concern here is that even if you know about Internet Archive, you have to be proficient with robots.txt standards in order to keep them out]
dunno, most organizations seem to want to participate, but only under the best terms they can get
(d) Given (a), how can someone remove past items from such archives? [Wayback Machine will remove all domain-specific content already in its archive if you place a robots.txt file to block it going forward]
I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible. Just because bits don't degrade like paper doesn't mean they -must- persist, does it?
no, but shouldn't we preserve as much as we can? I appreciate the will to destroy, that's fine. But for the people who do not care, the content that they have contributed constitutes evidence of many things.
Keep up the good discussion, michael
I'm thinking more about less formal expressions than newspapers, etc - things people had little intent to be archived for posterity. Ie, the occasional posting to a usenet board (I used usenet in the early 90s having no clue that they would be archived, let alone indexed and searchable by my name over a decade later)... Is there a pre-Internet analog to having such informal utterances automatically - and often unknowingly - archived by 3rd parties who were not part of (nor mediated) the exchange? I'm hoping someone can point to work critically exploring the ethics of the Internet Archive itself. -mz On Aug 13, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
On Aug 13, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Michael Zimmer wrote:
This has been an interesting discussion, and mention of IA's Wayback Machine prompts interesting questions which I'm sure others on the list can help answer:
(a) Are there other media forms (current or historical) where publishing content means that it is automatically scanned and archived by external aggregators (search spiders, Internet Archive, etc)? [If I posted a note on "The Wall" at Yale Law School, no one routinely takes a snapshot of the wall to keep a permanent record of it, right?]
Journals, newpapers, magazines come to mind as archived externally and internally.
(b) If examples for (a) exist, are typical publishers of said content aware that their works are being aggregated and archived in such a way?
yes, and they try to get as much profit out of the arrangement as they can, I think, but alas... it isn't always such an arrangement.
Would a new user know this? Are they notified?
In the case of Newspapers, there were a few court cases a few years ago dealing with the NYT archiving and distributing itself online, but i don't recall anyone complaining about third party distribution such as through firstsearch or similar tools. I think that there is now a standard contract in place for much of this in the publishing industry.
[My concern here is that while many realize that search engines might crawl their content, few realize they keep a cached copy, and even fewer realize that even deleted content is archived by Wayback Machine]
(c) Also, if examples of (a) exist, what means are provided to prevent such automatic archiving? Is it opt-in or opt-out? How technically proficient must one be? [Concern here is that even if you know about Internet Archive, you have to be proficient with robots.txt standards in order to keep them out]
dunno, most organizations seem to want to participate, but only under the best terms they can get
(d) Given (a), how can someone remove past items from such archives? [Wayback Machine will remove all domain-specific content already in its archive if you place a robots.txt file to block it going forward]
I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible. Just because bits don't degrade like paper doesn't mean they -must- persist, does it?
no, but shouldn't we preserve as much as we can? I appreciate the will to destroy, that's fine. But for the people who do not care, the content that they have contributed constitutes evidence of many things.
Keep up the good discussion, michael
_______________________________________________ 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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textfiles.com? or what I like to think of as 100000 dissertations waiting to happen. On Aug 13, 2007, at 2:07 PM, Michael Zimmer wrote:
I'm thinking more about less formal expressions than newspapers, etc - things people had little intent to be archived for posterity. Ie, the occasional posting to a usenet board (I used usenet in the early 90s having no clue that they would be archived, let alone indexed and searchable by my name over a decade later)...
Is there a pre-Internet analog to having such informal utterances automatically - and often unknowingly - archived by 3rd parties who were not part of (nor mediated) the exchange? I'm hoping someone can point to work critically exploring the ethics of the Internet Archive itself.
-mz
On Aug 13, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
On Aug 13, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Michael Zimmer wrote:
This has been an interesting discussion, and mention of IA's Wayback Machine prompts interesting questions which I'm sure others on the list can help answer:
(a) Are there other media forms (current or historical) where publishing content means that it is automatically scanned and archived by external aggregators (search spiders, Internet Archive, etc)? [If I posted a note on "The Wall" at Yale Law School, no one routinely takes a snapshot of the wall to keep a permanent record of it, right?]
Journals, newpapers, magazines come to mind as archived externally and internally.
(b) If examples for (a) exist, are typical publishers of said content aware that their works are being aggregated and archived in such a way?
yes, and they try to get as much profit out of the arrangement as they can, I think, but alas... it isn't always such an arrangement.
Would a new user know this? Are they notified?
In the case of Newspapers, there were a few court cases a few years ago dealing with the NYT archiving and distributing itself online, but i don't recall anyone complaining about third party distribution such as through firstsearch or similar tools. I think that there is now a standard contract in place for much of this in the publishing industry.
[My concern here is that while many realize that search engines might crawl their content, few realize they keep a cached copy, and even fewer realize that even deleted content is archived by Wayback Machine]
(c) Also, if examples of (a) exist, what means are provided to prevent such automatic archiving? Is it opt-in or opt-out? How technically proficient must one be? [Concern here is that even if you know about Internet Archive, you have to be proficient with robots.txt standards in order to keep them out]
dunno, most organizations seem to want to participate, but only under the best terms they can get
(d) Given (a), how can someone remove past items from such archives? [Wayback Machine will remove all domain-specific content already in its archive if you place a robots.txt file to block it going forward]
I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible. Just because bits don't degrade like paper doesn't mean they -must- persist, does it?
no, but shouldn't we preserve as much as we can? I appreciate the will to destroy, that's fine. But for the people who do not care, the content that they have contributed constitutes evidence of many things.
Keep up the good discussion, michael
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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
Do remember that The Wayback Machine is not the only archive...possibly just the most well known at least to the online research set. Several libraries are archiving blogs they view as significant, The National Library of Australia comes to mind here. To my knowledge selection for archiving there is opt-out...not that I know of anyone who has done so...nor do I know what the library would do if someone said know. Please more info here from anyone in the know. I do know that those who have been selected have been informed of the selection...not asked if it was ok for their work to be included. 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 Michael Zimmer <michael.zimmer@nyu.edu>:
I'm thinking more about less formal expressions than newspapers, etc - things people had little intent to be archived for posterity. Ie, the occasional posting to a usenet board (I used usenet in the early 90s having no clue that they would be archived, let alone indexed and searchable by my name over a decade later)...
Is there a pre-Internet analog to having such informal utterances automatically - and often unknowingly - archived by 3rd parties who were not part of (nor mediated) the exchange? I'm hoping someone can point to work critically exploring the ethics of the Internet Archive itself.
-mz
On Aug 13, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
On Aug 13, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Michael Zimmer wrote:
This has been an interesting discussion, and mention of IA's Wayback Machine prompts interesting questions which I'm sure others on the list can help answer:
(a) Are there other media forms (current or historical) where publishing content means that it is automatically scanned and archived by external aggregators (search spiders, Internet Archive, etc)? [If I posted a note on "The Wall" at Yale Law School, no one routinely takes a snapshot of the wall to keep a permanent record of it, right?]
Journals, newpapers, magazines come to mind as archived externally and internally.
(b) If examples for (a) exist, are typical publishers of said content aware that their works are being aggregated and archived in such a way?
yes, and they try to get as much profit out of the arrangement as they can, I think, but alas... it isn't always such an arrangement.
Would a new user know this? Are they notified?
In the case of Newspapers, there were a few court cases a few years ago dealing with the NYT archiving and distributing itself online, but i don't recall anyone complaining about third party distribution such as through firstsearch or similar tools. I think that there is now a standard contract in place for much of this in the publishing industry.
[My concern here is that while many realize that search engines might crawl their content, few realize they keep a cached copy, and even fewer realize that even deleted content is archived by Wayback Machine]
(c) Also, if examples of (a) exist, what means are provided to prevent such automatic archiving? Is it opt-in or opt-out? How technically proficient must one be? [Concern here is that even if you know about Internet Archive, you have to be proficient with robots.txt standards in order to keep them out]
dunno, most organizations seem to want to participate, but only under the best terms they can get
(d) Given (a), how can someone remove past items from such archives? [Wayback Machine will remove all domain-specific content already in its archive if you place a robots.txt file to block it going forward]
I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible. Just because bits don't degrade like paper doesn't mean they -must- persist, does it?
no, but shouldn't we preserve as much as we can? I appreciate the will to destroy, that's fine. But for the people who do not care, the content that they have contributed constitutes evidence of many things.
Keep up the good discussion, michael
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Michael, Because all your questions center around issue (a), I'll respond to that. IMO, the recent upsets about Google Map's streetview pictures adequately demonstrate that real-world expression or behaviors are indeed being documented without informed consent of the "subjects." My personal take on the matter is that the Google vans, which cruise streets, snapping pictures and sewing them together to make an ideally seamless electronic visual representation of a street, are only photographing what is already public. There was a fuss made by a woman who complained that her cat was visible in peering out the window of her apartment. This constituted an invasion of privacy for her. I've heard people say things like, "What's next? Soon the Google vans will be peering in through open windows and reading book titles off our shelves!" (See here: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/30/google_maps_is_spyin.html) As you say, Michael, bits don't like to degrade. But really, it's just that digital culture has established a new mindset for preservation, and this influences archival practices much more than just logistical or economic reasoning. This means that because things can be stored digitally, they're going to be. And that includes pictures of your cat in your living room window just as much as it does your blog. For related reading, I'll cite only: Blanchette, Jean-François and Johnson, Deborah G. "Data retention and the panoptic society: The social benefits of forgetfulness." 2007. I do not have a publishing journal in the copy I have, which leads me to think it was released only online, at least at first. I'm sure many others on this list can provide similar reading on this subject. Also, I feel compelled to point out that Charlie did not take note of Michael's point (d). See here for more on that: http://www.archive.org/about/exclude.php Conor Michael Zimmer wrote:
This has been an interesting discussion, and mention of IA's Wayback Machine prompts interesting questions which I'm sure others on the list can help answer:
(a) Are there other media forms (current or historical) where publishing content means that it is automatically scanned and archived by external aggregators (search spiders, Internet Archive, etc)? [If I posted a note on "The Wall" at Yale Law School, no one routinely takes a snapshot of the wall to keep a permanent record of it, right?]
(b) If examples for (a) exist, are typical publishers of said content aware that their works are being aggregated and archived in such a way? Would a new user know this? Are they notified? [My concern here is that while many realize that search engines might crawl their content, few realize they keep a cached copy, and even fewer realize that even deleted content is archived by Wayback Machine]
(c) Also, if examples of (a) exist, what means are provided to prevent such automatic archiving? Is it opt-in or opt-out? How technically proficient must one be? [Concern here is that even if you know about Internet Archive, you have to be proficient with robots.txt standards in order to keep them out]
(d) Given (a), how can someone remove past items from such archives? [Wayback Machine will remove all domain-specific content already in its archive if you place a robots.txt file to block it going forward]
I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible. Just because bits don't degrade like paper doesn't mean they -must- persist, does it?
Keep up the good discussion, michael
----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer@nyu.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org
On Aug 13, 2007, at 11:36 AM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
And don't forget archiving, that a publicly accessible webpage is likely to be archived in the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php) or as some of us old Saturday Morning Cartoon watchers like to call it...The Wayback Machine.
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>:
I would advise you to remove your blogs then because it is very likely that if it is linked to anywhere or hosted on a major blogging platform that it is in one of the research compediums of blogs. if we can find it through google blogsearch or technorati, then it is likely it is in one or more research collections.
it is not that you are putting up a window... it is that you are sending out broadsheets and posters on the fence, on the side of your house, probably into public mailboxes, etc. etc.. i don't have to look into the window to see what you've done, i can take photos from the street, comment on the architecture, etc. If i
a disclaimer won't really solve your issue either, it might be respected, but only if you do it in a machine readable way. a robot.txt file excluding all search engines will go much farther than a disclaimer.
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Because all your questions center around issue (a), I'll respond to that. IMO, the recent upsets about Google Map's streetview pictures adequately demonstrate that real-world expression or behaviors are indeed being documented without informed consent of the "subjects." My personal take on the matter is that the Google vans, which cruise streets, snapping pictures and sewing them together to make an ideally seamless electronic visual representation of a street, are only photographing what is already public. There was a fuss made by a woman who complained that her cat was visible in peering out the window of her apartment. This constituted an invasion of privacy for her. I've heard people say things like, "What's next? Soon the Google vans will be peering in through open windows and reading book titles off our shelves!" (See here: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/30/google_maps_is_spyin.html)
Not to mention the potential embarrassment to the gentleman from Arizona - I think it was Arizona - who was captured sitting on a park bench picking his nose. The potential embarrassment would be increased - at least in some writers estimation - because all the late night talk show hosts pointed directly at this guy in their monologues...even giving the URL in some cases. HOWEVER, since the action in question - said nose picking - took place in public and was captured and posted on the web...the late night talk show hosts might have been shining a brighter light on the whole thing but they were not adding to the potential audience. Lois
Yeah, I've seen many similar instances, such as a man caught urinating by the roadside, a woman getting in or out of her car with her thong exposed... while I agree that all these things are indeed occurring in public and therefore it is not a violation of privacy to post them, even for archival, I simply cannot agree with your statement that the organizations responsible for this dissemination "were not adding to the potential audience." I think that notions of what constitutes privacy will shift gradually. There will /always /be a public/private dichotomy of sometime, IMO. Conor Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
Not to mention the potential embarrassment to the gentleman from Arizona - I think it was Arizona - who was captured sitting on a park bench picking his nose. The potential embarrassment would be increased - at least in some writers estimation - because all the late night talk show hosts pointed directly at this guy in their monologues...even giving the URL in some cases.
HOWEVER, since the action in question - said nose picking - took place in public and was captured and posted on the web...the late night talk show hosts might have been shining a brighter light on the whole thing but they were not adding to the potential audience.
Lois
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How are they not adding to the potential audience? When I'm sitting in the park, there are a finite number of people in the park who happen to be looking in my direction at the precise moment my finger enters my nose. Isn't that often part of the calculus when people do embarrassing things in public - that few people will see it, and those that do don't know me, etc. Now, having said action captured by a camera -- a camera, mind you, that no one gave consent to (many public CCTV systems are required to at least post notice - not so with Google's cute little cars roaming our cities with their 11-lens cameras) -- and then indexed and uploaded by one of the world's largest brokers of information constitutes a significant shift in my expectations of the visibility of my action. I had never considered (nor had any say in the matter) as to whether it would be recorded, meta-tagged with a location (perhaps even the date), nor made available online. Even if we feel that isn't a violation of contextual integrity (see Nissenbaum), I could perhaps rest assured that it is highly unlikely that someone happens to stumble upon that particular image from the millions captured by Google. Surely, few will find it, let alone my mother. Enter Mr Leno & Mr Letterman (don't know if it was them - but for sake of example...). Now, instead of me relying on the obscurity of the particular image to protect my embarrassment, its existence and URL has been broadcast to millions by two popular and trusted celebrities. Ping! IMO, the whole "you did it in public anyway" argument holds little water... -mz ----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer@nyu.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org On Aug 13, 2007, at 6:43 PM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
Not to mention the potential embarrassment to the gentleman from Arizona - I think it was Arizona - who was captured sitting on a park bench picking his nose. The potential embarrassment would be increased - at least in some writers estimation - because all the late night talk show hosts pointed directly at this guy in their monologues...even giving the URL in some cases.
HOWEVER, since the action in question - said nose picking - took place in public and was captured and posted on the web...the late night talk show hosts might have been shining a brighter light on the whole thing but they were not adding to the potential audience.
Lois
This is not meant to be a legal point, but a philosophical one. The legal issues are much more complex and ultimately, for this purpose, futile, IMHO. My understanding is that there is a significant body of case law in the Western world (possibly the US is the exception here because of their unique approach to free speech), which holds that, for defamation purposes at least, publication *does not have to be intentional*. This makes sense in a defamation context, because the damage done by defammatory allegations is done regardless of the intent of the person who made them - a typo in a newspaper can be just as damaging as an overheard comment, but neither publication was intentional. The implication of this is that once you put something in a public place, it has been published ... QED. Whether you meant your blog comment to be private, whether you failed to realise that it was a public place or not, is irrelevent. The material has been published and must be dealt with on such a basis ... Pandora's box is open and cannot be closed. It might be the very fact and/or effect of accidental publication that is the object of study ... Newspapers have been microfisched, complete with typos, for a very long time ... As far as archiving goes, the Pandora analogy works well - once something is on the 'Net it's almost impossible to erase it, and IMHO, you should not attempt to. There needs to be some record of what was there so that its ripples can be understood. So, just as we teach our kids not to say hurtful things when we're angry, so we have to teach our kids not to say private things in public spaces ... and to withstand the Culture of Narcissism. I therefore would back the notion that anything that is not locked away behind a password on the Internet is fair game for researchers (but diplomatic consent can make life a lot easier ...) Cheers, Hughie The Genre Benders: "I am leaving! I am leaving!" - out now at www.genrebenders.com www.cdbaby.com/genrebenders -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Michael Zimmer Sent: Tuesday, 14 August 2007 9:07 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] on the Wayback Machine (was public/private [part1 of 2]) How are they not adding to the potential audience? When I'm sitting in the park, there are a finite number of people in the park who happen to be looking in my direction at the precise moment my finger enters my nose. Isn't that often part of the calculus when people do embarrassing things in public - that few people will see it, and those that do don't know me, etc. Now, having said action captured by a camera -- a camera, mind you, that no one gave consent to (many public CCTV systems are required to at least post notice - not so with Google's cute little cars roaming our cities with their 11-lens cameras) -- and then indexed and uploaded by one of the world's largest brokers of information constitutes a significant shift in my expectations of the visibility of my action. I had never considered (nor had any say in the matter) as to whether it would be recorded, meta-tagged with a location (perhaps even the date), nor made available online. Even if we feel that isn't a violation of contextual integrity (see Nissenbaum), I could perhaps rest assured that it is highly unlikely that someone happens to stumble upon that particular image from the millions captured by Google. Surely, few will find it, let alone my mother. Enter Mr Leno & Mr Letterman (don't know if it was them - but for sake of example...). Now, instead of me relying on the obscurity of the particular image to protect my embarrassment, its existence and URL has been broadcast to millions by two popular and trusted celebrities. Ping! IMO, the whole "you did it in public anyway" argument holds little water... -mz ----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer@nyu.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org On Aug 13, 2007, at 6:43 PM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
Not to mention the potential embarrassment to the gentleman from Arizona - I think it was Arizona - who was captured sitting on a park bench picking his nose. The potential embarrassment would be increased - at least in some writers estimation - because all the late night talk show hosts pointed directly at this guy in their monologues...even giving the URL in some cases.
HOWEVER, since the action in question - said nose picking - took place in public and was captured and posted on the web...the late night talk show hosts might have been shining a brighter light on the whole thing but they were not adding to the potential audience.
Lois
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My point was not related to the actual capturing of the pictures or their posting on the web...I have lots of questions about the ethics of both those acts. My point is that once they were posted on a publicly accessible website, the late night talk show hosts didn't substantially increase the potential audience for the posted pictures. As for your final comment...clearly we disagree on that one in relation to research at least...and as I am not a lawyer I will make no comments outside that limitation. 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 Michael Zimmer <michael.zimmer@nyu.edu>:
How are they not adding to the potential audience? When I'm sitting in the park, there are a finite number of people in the park who happen to be looking in my direction at the precise moment my finger enters my nose. Isn't that often part of the calculus when people do embarrassing things in public - that few people will see it, and those that do don't know me, etc.
Now, having said action captured by a camera -- a camera, mind you, that no one gave consent to (many public CCTV systems are required to at least post notice - not so with Google's cute little cars roaming our cities with their 11-lens cameras) -- and then indexed and uploaded by one of the world's largest brokers of information constitutes a significant shift in my expectations of the visibility of my action. I had never considered (nor had any say in the matter) as to whether it would be recorded, meta-tagged with a location (perhaps even the date), nor made available online.
Even if we feel that isn't a violation of contextual integrity (see Nissenbaum), I could perhaps rest assured that it is highly unlikely that someone happens to stumble upon that particular image from the millions captured by Google. Surely, few will find it, let alone my mother. Enter Mr Leno & Mr Letterman (don't know if it was them - but for sake of example...). Now, instead of me relying on the obscurity of the particular image to protect my embarrassment, its existence and URL has been broadcast to millions by two popular and trusted celebrities. Ping!
IMO, the whole "you did it in public anyway" argument holds little water...
-mz
----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer@nyu.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org
On Aug 13, 2007, at 6:43 PM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
Not to mention the potential embarrassment to the gentleman from Arizona - I think it was Arizona - who was captured sitting on a park bench picking his nose. The potential embarrassment would be increased - at least in some writers estimation - because all the late night talk show hosts pointed directly at this guy in their monologues...even giving the URL in some cases.
HOWEVER, since the action in question - said nose picking - took place in public and was captured and posted on the web...the late night talk show hosts might have been shining a brighter light on the whole thing but they were not adding to the potential audience.
Lois
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I'm not a lawyer either :) But to complicate your argument below (and Hughie's in a separate thread), a couple of thought experiments: Say I place content on a "publicly accessible" webpage without creating any incoming links or notifying anyone. Web crawlers won't find it. A search engine won't index it. While on the open and public Internet, unless a random URL-generator happens to guess the precise address of the page, no one will ever read it. Is this content "fair game for researchers"? Consider a different scenario: Walking down the street with a friend, I comment on the fact my rent check bounced, and she offers condolences. We're in public. We make the utterances loud enough that someone next to us could easily hear it, but not loud enough that someone across the street can. Now, this is a public utterance - we didn't have the conversation behind locked (password-protected) doors. Can this be archived for research? Better yet, can we setup microphones to automatically record every conversation uttered in public? Does the fact these conversations *can* be recorded and archived mean they, by default, *should be*? I feel we're saying the same about utterances on the Web - so what's the fundamental difference from a user perspective between the street and the Web? Both are a place where we engage in conversations and maintain relationships.... I fear we're confusing what the Internet *is* and *is capable of* with *how it is used*. Yes, comments left on a personal blog are open for anyone to see. Yes, discussion board conversations can be archived. But that's not, I suspect, going through the mind of many casual users of this technology. It is a medium for communication, for connecting with people. I leave messages on my neighborhood parents discussion board because that's how I connect with that community. I use my real name because I'm among friends. Does that mean my comments are de facto fair game for any researcher who wants to scrape the database? I don't claim to have any answers here - just wondering how to work through the problem at hand.... -mz ----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer@nyu.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org On Aug 13, 2007, at 8:40 PM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
My point was not related to the actual capturing of the pictures or their posting on the web...I have lots of questions about the ethics of both those acts. My point is that once they were posted on a publicly accessible website, the late night talk show hosts didn't substantially increase the potential audience for the posted pictures.
As for your final comment...clearly we disagree on that one in relation to research at least...and as I am not a lawyer I will make no comments outside that limitation.
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 Michael Zimmer <michael.zimmer@nyu.edu>:
How are they not adding to the potential audience? When I'm sitting in the park, there are a finite number of people in the park who happen to be looking in my direction at the precise moment my finger enters my nose. Isn't that often part of the calculus when people do embarrassing things in public - that few people will see it, and those that do don't know me, etc.
Now, having said action captured by a camera -- a camera, mind you, that no one gave consent to (many public CCTV systems are required to at least post notice - not so with Google's cute little cars roaming our cities with their 11-lens cameras) -- and then indexed and uploaded by one of the world's largest brokers of information constitutes a significant shift in my expectations of the visibility of my action. I had never considered (nor had any say in the matter) as to whether it would be recorded, meta-tagged with a location (perhaps even the date), nor made available online.
Even if we feel that isn't a violation of contextual integrity (see Nissenbaum), I could perhaps rest assured that it is highly unlikely that someone happens to stumble upon that particular image from the millions captured by Google. Surely, few will find it, let alone my mother. Enter Mr Leno & Mr Letterman (don't know if it was them - but for sake of example...). Now, instead of me relying on the obscurity of the particular image to protect my embarrassment, its existence and URL has been broadcast to millions by two popular and trusted celebrities. Ping!
IMO, the whole "you did it in public anyway" argument holds little water...
-mz
----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer@nyu.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org
On Aug 13, 2007, at 6:43 PM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
Not to mention the potential embarrassment to the gentleman from Arizona - I think it was Arizona - who was captured sitting on a park bench picking his nose. The potential embarrassment would be increased - at least in some writers estimation - because all the late night talk show hosts pointed directly at this guy in their monologues...even giving the URL in some cases.
HOWEVER, since the action in question - said nose picking - took place in public and was captured and posted on the web...the late night talk show hosts might have been shining a brighter light on the whole thing but they were not adding to the potential audience.
Lois
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unless of course, you run a bot system unawares... through a plug in or otherwise. that is how the alexa index was built, people added a crawler-bot feeder to their browsers, so if you go to a page, it found the page. (we might want to cut our replies a bit too) 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
On 8/13/07, Michael Zimmer <michael.zimmer@nyu.edu> wrote:
I guess what I'm wondering is why there seems to be a presumption that just because I posted something on a website in 1999 I want it to always be accessible.
I don't think that anyone has posted an adequate response to this statement. If I am wrong and I have missed the response in this rather lengthy and fast-moving exchange, please accept my apologies! I am very wary of projecting my own knowledge - technical, legal, or otherwise - onto others and assuming they share that knowledge. But I fear that we might be guilty of that, consciously or unconsciously. Yes, *we* all know that anything placed online is, unless specifically protected (passwords, robots.txt, etc.), in the public and fair game for a number of uses and abuses. But the question that I would like answered is: How widespread is this awareness and how evenly is this awareness spread? Are we making an unwarranted assumption and in what cases is that assumption unwarranted? I've got some interesting anecdotes related to this topic but I'm sure there is some data out there to help answer these questions and I am hopeful that someone familiar with it can point us to it. I've worked with and encountered too many people who are ignorant of the inherently public and archived nature of the Internet to take that knowledge for granted in others. Kevin
On 13/08/07, Michael Zimmer <michael.zimmer@nyu.edu> wrote:
(a) Are there other media forms (current or historical) where publishing content means that it is automatically scanned and archived by external aggregators (search spiders, Internet Archive, etc)? [If I posted a note on "The Wall" at Yale Law School, no one routinely takes a snapshot of the wall to keep a permanent record of it, right?]
Not automatic as such, but I've recently been contacted by the British Library as they're trying to create an archive of online material. They've sent me forms for me to sign, to say that I'm happy for them to archive it (and to agree that I hold the copyright). Emma -- Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/
It should be noted that the act of deleting internet content does not remove its availability. Sites like http://archive.org claim to record the entire internet history and provide free access and comparisons of content changes. I've occasionally explored the evolution of content using archive.org (I've no association other than an occasional user). My interest has mostly been how business and government sites change but the possibility of looking at revisionist blogs is a fascinating research opportunity. I've also written software that allows me to "scrape" or aggregate public information when the owners would not or could not provide the database for analysis. I've not published the information collected from my scrapes for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I'm lazy and the value of self-selected responses to surveys are very questionable. Then again, I suspect I could find "serious flaws" in almost *any* research design. I continue to be amazed that research provides useful results despite how easy it is to find errors in the research process. As a bottom line, if you post it on the net, it is public. The publisher might regret their post but that does not make it private. Yes, additional exposure might bring some greater harm to the poster but the poster has brought it upon themselves. IRBs should focus on research where an *intervention* might cause the participant harm. Charlie Balch Me.D, MBA, Ph.D yada yada professor of Computer Information Systems Arizona Western College http://charlie.balch.org
I'd like to ask then a sort of meta question here. I am working with internet research ethics, particularly with regards to 3D virtual environments (SL) but also about how/if ethics may differ depending on application and other contextual factors. If I wanted to analyze this discussion on research ethics that has been going on on this list, what would you suggest would be the right way to approach the issue of consent? While this list is publicly archived (at http://listserv.aoir.org/pipermail/air-l-aoir.org/) some people here have explicitly claimed that might not be a sufficient requirement to use data without consent. This ties in to a problem I have pondered already before. If you disagree with your research participants wether not getting consent or not would be harmful, is it your word or theirs that count? (An odd, but authentic example: You research publicly posted material, political blogs for example, and encounter a blog that has a post that says they hate researchers who dont get consent). It seems that when we say that "the ground rule is that if you post it on the web its public" we mean that as a truth that disqualifies the expectations and wishes of some people. Do we follow the participants wishes against what we think is better knowledge or do we own up to the fact that research sometimes involves dominance? -asa -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fran: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org]For Charlie Balch Skickat: den 13 augusti 2007 20:11 Till: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Amne: Re: [Air-L] Public/ Private It should be noted that the act of deleting internet content does not remove its availability. Sites like http://archive.org claim to record the entire internet history and provide free access and comparisons of content changes. I've occasionally explored the evolution of content using archive.org (I've no association other than an occasional user). My interest has mostly been how business and government sites change but the possibility of looking at revisionist blogs is a fascinating research opportunity. I've also written software that allows me to "scrape" or aggregate public information when the owners would not or could not provide the database for analysis. I've not published the information collected from my scrapes for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I'm lazy and the value of self-selected responses to surveys are very questionable. Then again, I suspect I could find "serious flaws" in almost *any* research design. I continue to be amazed that research provides useful results despite how easy it is to find errors in the research process. As a bottom line, if you post it on the net, it is public. The publisher might regret their post but that does not make it private. Yes, additional exposure might bring some greater harm to the poster but the poster has brought it upon themselves. IRBs should focus on research where an *intervention* might cause the participant harm. Charlie Balch Me.D, MBA, Ph.D yada yada professor of Computer Information Systems Arizona Western College http://charlie.balch.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/
On Aug 13, 2007, at 3:10 PM, Asa Rosenberg wrote:
I'd like to ask then a sort of meta question here. I am working with internet research ethics, particularly with regards to 3D virtual environments (SL) but also about how/if ethics may differ depending on application and other contextual factors. If I wanted to analyze this discussion on research ethics that has been going on on this list, what would you suggest would be the right way to approach the issue of consent?
While this list is publicly archived (at http://listserv.aoir.org/pipermail/air-l-aoir.org/) some people here have explicitly claimed that might not be a sufficient requirement to use data without consent.
but nowhere on the list description does it say that list messages are "private"? r
This ties in to a problem I have pondered already before. If you disagree with your research participants wether not getting consent or not would be harmful, is it your word or theirs that count? (An odd, but authentic example: You research publicly posted material, political blogs for example, and encounter a blog that has a post that says they hate researchers who dont get consent).
It seems that when we say that "the ground rule is that if you post it on the web its public" we mean that as a truth that disqualifies the expectations and wishes of some people. Do we follow the participants wishes against what we think is better knowledge or do we own up to the fact that research sometimes involves dominance?
-asa
-----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fran: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org]For Charlie Balch Skickat: den 13 augusti 2007 20:11 Till: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Amne: Re: [Air-L] Public/ Private
It should be noted that the act of deleting internet content does not remove its availability. Sites like http://archive.org claim to record the entire internet history and provide free access and comparisons of content changes.
I've occasionally explored the evolution of content using archive.org (I've no association other than an occasional user). My interest has mostly been how business and government sites change but the possibility of looking at revisionist blogs is a fascinating research opportunity.
I've also written software that allows me to "scrape" or aggregate public information when the owners would not or could not provide the database for analysis. I've not published the information collected from my scrapes for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I'm lazy and the value of self- selected responses to surveys are very questionable.
Then again, I suspect I could find "serious flaws" in almost *any* research design. I continue to be amazed that research provides useful results despite how easy it is to find errors in the research process.
As a bottom line, if you post it on the net, it is public. The publisher might regret their post but that does not make it private. Yes, additional exposure might bring some greater harm to the poster but the poster has brought it upon themselves.
IRBs should focus on research where an *intervention* might cause the participant harm.
Charlie Balch Me.D, MBA, Ph.D yada yada professor of Computer Information Systems Arizona Western College http://charlie.balch.org
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but nowhere on the list description does it say that list messages are "private"?
but there are terms of use for the list, which as i recall requires permission that were created after the list was threatened with research. i can't find that message now though... http://aoir.org/?q=node/5 is the list rules as best as i can tell.
jeremy hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu) wiki.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.stswiki.org/ sts wiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ Learning Inquiry-the journal http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/ Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series
It seems that when we say that "the ground rule is that if you post it on the web its public" we mean that as a truth that disqualifies the expectations and wishes of some people. Do we follow the participants wishes against what we think is better knowledge or do we own up to the fact that research sometimes involves dominance?
I don't think we have said, at least I know I haven't said, that everything on the web is public. I know it's not. What I am talking about in my posts are webpages, etc, that are publicly accessible. So if the page does not require a password for access or if the receipt of the password (aka registration) is an automatic approval process then I would call the page "publicly accessible." However if the webpage, or site, is not publicly accessible then different rules apply. I think what you do over and above the legal/IRB requirements (and I'm only talking about the US here) is completely up to you. I've never seen an IRB crank someone back if they want to use informed consent in a publicly accessible venue. Of course that isn't usually the problem...usually we get requests that would be equivalent to a waver of informed consent where normally consent would be required...and the reason for the waver is that the researcher doesn't want to get informed consent. Or as I can be properly, though not politically appropriately, term the "Waaaa Waaaa Waaaa" proposal. "I'm to busy to bother with getting informed consent...besides everyone knows I would never do anything bad to anyone." Waaa Waaa Waaa Sorry we really needed a touch of humor on this thread...even if it is in moderately poor taste. *S* Lois
Sites like http://archive.org claim to record the entire internet history and provide free access and comparisons of content changes. just as a side note, archive.org respects the wishes of those who do not want their site archived, and you can do this via the inclusion of a robots.txt file. http://www.archive.org/about/exclude.php -- -- Barry Saunders http://investigativeblog.net http://youdecide2007.net --------------------- PhD Candidate // researcher http://creativeindustries.qut.edu.au ph: 07 3138 0155 skype: barry_saunders (CRICOS No. 00213J)
As usual Charlie raises an excellent point. When you look at the medical model from which IRB rules have sprouted, the primary issue is does the intervention itself cause harm. While the term "intervention" would be a lot fuzzier for social science research I think the thought process one would use to work through the logic is very useful. 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 Charlie Balch <charlie@balch.org>:
It should be noted that the act of deleting internet content does not remove its availability. Sites like http://archive.org claim to record the entire internet history and provide free access and comparisons of content changes.
I've occasionally explored the evolution of content using archive.org (I've no association other than an occasional user). My interest has mostly been how business and government sites change but the possibility of looking at revisionist blogs is a fascinating research opportunity.
I've also written software that allows me to "scrape" or aggregate public information when the owners would not or could not provide the database for analysis. I've not published the information collected from my scrapes for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I'm lazy and the value of self-selected responses to surveys are very questionable.
Then again, I suspect I could find "serious flaws" in almost *any* research design. I continue to be amazed that research provides useful results despite how easy it is to find errors in the research process.
As a bottom line, if you post it on the net, it is public. The publisher might regret their post but that does not make it private. Yes, additional exposure might bring some greater harm to the poster but the poster has brought it upon themselves.
IRBs should focus on research where an *intervention* might cause the participant harm.
Charlie Balch Me.D, MBA, Ph.D yada yada professor of Computer Information Systems Arizona Western College http://charlie.balch.org
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I hate to see this discussion become corrosive, but I also think it is a mistake to abandon the discussion entirely because of some differences of opinion. I'll reiterate that in my experience, studying public blogs--or for that matter any intentionally public page on the web--is usually the equivalent of studying newspaper articles. In both media, I have done the work with *no* IRB oversight. In early cases of looking at weblog content, I consulted informally with the chair of an IRB and verified that since no subjects were involved, no IRB application (expedited or otherwise) was necessary. And so, to Lois's comment... On 8/13/07, Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt@indiana.edu> wrote:
If the unit of analysis is the webpage only, then of course application to an IRB is required in the US. But it will, most likely be exempt level research.
That does not follow as an "of course" to me. Exemptions are generally for minimally invasive studies of subjects: i.e., of individuals. This includes, for example, materials that have already been made public through earlier work. But it does not apply to, for example, newspaper articles. I can see why the dichotomy between subjects and their communications could lead to confusion. Take, for example, the AOL Search Data that was made available. I think the ethical issues were discussed here on AIR-L. Could you make the argument that you are not studying people but their communications in that case? No, because any reasonable person typing their searches into a search engine would not expect those searches--especially streams of queries--to be made publicly available and identifiable. I acknowledge that bloggers may not always be cognizant of the *repercussions* of the public nature of their blogging. We are all familiar with stories of bloggers being "dooced" in one form or another, and I'll admit to having the "ZOMG my Mom reads my blog" moment more than once. Despite the fuzziness of the "reasonable person" and "reasonable expectation" language that shows up in so much US jurisprudence, I think it is fair to assume that when someone publishes something to the world, they mean for people to read it. Discussion and disagreements are important in this and in any ethical issue, but I am surprised by Ed's suggestion that there are substantial differences of opinion on the question on whether IRBs require full review for content analysis of blogs. But then, I'll also admit surprise that Lois's IRB requires expedited review of her group's studies. Without suggesting that the wider ethical question is without merit (I think that it is), I would be interested in hearing from those on the list who have published or presented content analyses of blogs, whether anyone has heard of an actual case where the IRB required review. I would also be interested in a clarification from Lois & Elijah, since they have published research in this area, whether they were required by their IRB to submit a formal application for exemption. I also wonder if someone on this very large list has served on an IRB and would be willing to add their voice. I admit that I am operating under the assumption that there is no substantial controversy on this topic from the perspective of IRBs--that their interpretation is that blogs are public--but I am willing to correct that understanding if there are examples of research of blog content for which local IRBs *have* required review. Best, Alex -- -- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net //
Hi all, Before jumping into this discussion, I'd also like to raise the flag of internationalism (as I sit here in ohio) and remind folks that different rules and procedures will apply for different regions/nations/etc, including different assumptions about what constitutes harm, risk, etc. That said, I got curious as to what my own IRB says about blog research, since I've done newsgroup analysis in the past and didn't get approval for it. Here's why: The IRB guidelines are actually a re-direct to US (federal) guidelines for IRBs and research. They say that "...research activities in which the only involvement of human subjects will be in one or more of the following categories are exempt from this policy: "...Research involving the collection or study of existing data, documents, records, pathological specimens, or diagnostic specimens, if these sources are publicly available or if the information is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that subjects cannot be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects." Source at: http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm#46.101 So, publicly available blog sites, websites, newsgroups, etc, would appear to be exempt from review (unless we want to argue over what "publicly accessible" means). And more interestingly, if you read this closely, it would seem that even if it is NOT publicly available, but the researcher makes sure that "subjects cannot be identified" that type of work is also exempt. I'm guessing that might apply in situations such as Facebook, where to gain access to someone's profile you need to be friends (thus making those profiles semi-private). I'm not advocating such an approach, but it would seem to be acceptable at least according to US IRB guidelines. Finally, I think we need to keep in mind a bigger concern about places like blogs and social network sites, which is that the companies which run them have NO compunctions about monitoring your activity, taking ownership of your content, tracking you, etc etc. My two cents, Mia -- Mia Consalvo, Associate Professor Director of Graduate Studies 213 RTV Building School of Telecommunications 9 South College Street Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 740.597.1521
Alex, I will have to think about some of your post and respond later, because one concept has my head spinning around backwards. Nowhere that I know of in the regs, does it say that the decision as to what type of studies or data used is left up to the researcher to decide if they need to seek IRB approval. Now I am by nature not a huge lover of rules and regs and authority boards...but when it comes to IRBs I see how we got here and I understand why all research requires peer vetting. If the researcher could make the decision then 1) IRB's would not be needed because no errors would be made, and 2) lots of researchers would be saying they were exempt just to avoid going through the administrative process. My personal research on teens and their online lives, etc. has required me to apply for IRB approval when my peers working with adults did not have the same requirement. In short, all of my classroom research had to be approved - intended publication or not - where students not looking at protected populations didn't have to apply unless they intended to publish or present. This exception is not available to faculty, so all research that loosely is tied to humans must be vetted by the IRB. I know of colleges/universities that have taken a "old school" stance on what connotes "research" so that qualitative methods were not considered research - since findings are not generalizable - so application is not made. I think these institutions are changing though...if nothing else because the feds have sent out lots of guidance of late on how to handle qualitative studies, within the current legal framework. 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
participants (16)
-
Alex Halavais -
Asa Rosenberg -
barry saunders -
Charlie Balch -
Conor Schaefer -
Emma Duke-Williams -
Hugemusic -
jcu -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Kevin Guidry -
Lois Ann Scheidt -
M. Deanya Lattimore -
Mia Consalvo -
Michael Zimmer -
Radhika Gajjala -
Sarah Robbins