EthicsnConsent meet tomorrow at 10.30 am SLT - on Secondlife Bowling Green State University's Island
here is the slurl come if you can and IM rad Zabibha. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bowling%20Green%20State/26/197/21 [1.30 pm EST] Radhika Gajjala Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator School of Communication Studies 302 West Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43402 http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik http://www.cyberdiva.org/blog
For anyone who was following our earlier thread or who is interested in deontological and/or teleological approaches to online research, I am recommending a book for your reading pleasure. I am currently reading Couser, G. Thomas (2004). Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing</span>. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press. First the book is not directly about human subjects research but from the perspective of life-writing it captures many of the issues discussed here. While I haven't finished reading I can tell you that I've marked up so much of the first 50 pages with thoughts and observations I can tell this is a good thought provoking work for those of us who take parts of people's lives as our research data. 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
Seems I've bounced one to many emails today - beta testing a new application - and I forgot to change the title of the message from which I stole the addy. *sigh* Message follows below.
For anyone who was following our earlier thread or who is interested in deontological and/or teleological approaches to online research, I am recommending a book for your reading pleasure.
I am currently reading
Couser, G. Thomas (2004). Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing</span>. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.
First the book is not directly about human subjects research but from the perspective of life-writing it captures many of the issues discussed here. While I haven't finished reading I can tell you that I've marked up so much of the first 50 pages with thoughts and observations I can tell this is a good thought provoking work for those of us who take parts of people's lives as our research data.
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/
I would like to revisit a question I floated during the ethics debate, and ask for your insight and perspective. A couple of background rules first, 1) by publicly accessible I mean websites that do not require a password or which may require registration but most (if not all) requests for access are granted. I do not mean sites where registration must be vetted through an individual before access is given. 2) No more than one level of "what if" is allowed. Once you get to that second "what if" or an "and" on the first stated "what if," you are already in very "iffy" territory...I hope we can all agree on that point. So here is my question, how is a researcher more dangerous to online content producers in publicly accessible websites than any other viewer/reader who has access to their words/multi-media presentations/etc? To make that a less complex sentence, how are researchers more dangerous to their online subjects than any other person who might access their publicly available site? 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
Lois, I've made it clear in other posts that I believe public information is fair game for researchers. In answer to your question about increase of danger to "subjects," there is the possibility that researchers will increase the exposure of content that could be damaging to the poster. On the other hand, the intent of research is to understand and improve. In balance, I believe there is greater good when all available data is considered. This is not to say that researchers should become like the paparazzi but to discarding public data cripples research. Charlie Balch Very much my own views and not my institutions
... how are researchers more dangerous to their online subjects than any other person who might access their publicly available site?
Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA
On 9/3/07, Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt@indiana.edu> wrote:
To make that a less complex sentence, how are researchers more dangerous to their online subjects than any other person who might access their publicly available site?
I personally don't think they are, but could see it as potentially being exploitative since the researcher is usually getting paid or amassing their own reputation points and would probably not be rewarding the online subject. Marcela
Quoting Marcela Musgrove <mmusgrove@gmail.com>:
I personally don't think they are, but could see it as potentially being exploitative since the researcher is usually getting paid or amassing their own reputation points and would probably not be rewarding the online subject.
Does the transaction have to be one-to-one or might referred reward offset the concern? I ask because, folks in publicly available sites often gain and lose reputation points on the local system, of course the reputation systems - academic and say chatroom or blog - are not the exact same systems. I don't doubt that on some of the adolescent sites reputation points might be granted for the participant having been cited or quoted in a published paper. I believe there are positives as well as negative aspects of being a participant in a study...we just tend to gravitate toward the negatives more easily...it's a human-being thing. 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 question in my mind hinges on the question as to whether we assign capacities and processes to researchers that cannot be found in the population in general to some significant degree, even if those capacities and processes are foregone. in short are the capacities and processes/practices of research privileged or exceptional in some way. if they are, then perhaps we could differentiate effects on the basis of that difference, but personally, given the number of people in the world that can do exactly the same types of things... i'm not sure we can make any valid differentiation.
On 9/3/07, Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt@indiana.edu> wrote:
I don't doubt that on some of the adolescent sites reputation points might be granted for the participant having been cited or quoted in a published paper.
Have you seen this happen? Actually do people even show their published papers to their participants when it's done? If you get your picture and quote in the newspaper, it's something to cut out and give to your mom, but with an obscure academic article where you're usually anonymized, it seems like it'd be a "meh" unless the researcher is particularly well-known. In journalism, if someone is misrepresented, they have the option of suing for libel or writing a furious letter to the editor, so I guess hypothetically if someone was upset with the way a researcher represented them, they could always sue or write a letter to the publication or university for them to investigate--has this happened? Marcela
suing for libel or writing a furious letter to the editor, so I guess hypothetically if someone was upset with the way a researcher represented them, they could always sue or write a letter to the publication or university for them to investigate--has this happened?
Yes. --elijah
On Sep 3, 2007, at 7:36 AM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
So here is my question, how is a researcher more dangerous to online content producers in publicly accessible websites than any other viewer/reader who has access to their words/multi-media presentations/etc?
To make that a less complex sentence, how are researchers more dangerous to their online subjects than any other person who might access their publicly available site?
Researchers may well do more than merely accessing the information; they may interpret it, label it, repackage it, and redistribute it in ways that can damage the privacy/reputation, etc. of the poster. It's one thing for me to write "I drink a little" (or some such thing) up on a blog for the world to see. It's another if/when a researcher takes that bit then turns it around and republishes it in a piece called "irresponsible drinking and the internet: the double addiction whammy." If my comment (the data that I provided, without informed consent, to the researcher doing research) can be tracked to me, the way that the researcher uses the data can hurt me worse than did my original presentation of it. Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Multimedia Program and Department of Communication Co-Director, New Media Center 1501 W. Bradley Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 309-677-2378 <http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html> <http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/> AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam Second Life: Professor Beliveau
Sure, Ed ... but that doesn't get at Lois' question about what (if anything) is *uniquely* dangerous about researchers in this regard. The very same processes of interpreting, labeling, repackaging, and redistributing, after all, are routinely used by journalists, politicians, preachers, bloggers, and then some. And, given the large discrepancies in audience size between, say, CNN and _New media and society_, any legitimate fears of possible "repackaging" are probably better directed at the "repackagers" who reach tens of millions of people (on a bad day), rather than the ones who reach hundreds (on a good one). Ed Lamoureux wrote:
On Sep 3, 2007, at 7:36 AM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
So here is my question, how is a researcher more dangerous to online content producers in publicly accessible websites than any other viewer/reader who has access to their words/multi-media presentations/etc?
To make that a less complex sentence, how are researchers more dangerous to their online subjects than any other person who might access their publicly available site?
Researchers may well do more than merely accessing the information; they may interpret it, label it, repackage it, and redistribute it in ways that can damage the privacy/reputation, etc. of the poster. It's one thing for me to write "I drink a little" (or some such thing) up on a blog for the world to see. It's another if/when a researcher takes that bit then turns it around and republishes it in a piece called "irresponsible drinking and the internet: the double addiction whammy." If my comment (the data that I provided, without informed consent, to the researcher doing research) can be tracked to me, the way that the researcher uses the data can hurt me worse than did my original presentation of it.
Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Multimedia Program and Department of Communication Co-Director, New Media Center 1501 W. Bradley Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 309-677-2378 <http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html> <http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/> AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam Second Life: Professor Beliveau
_______________________________________________ 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/
Gilbert " journalists, politicians, preachers, bloggers," are NOT social scientific researchers responsible to that institutionalized ethic. They don't promise their universities (and the government and society in general) to protect human subjects. You are right, they can do anything they darn well please (within the confines of the ethics of their genre). We cannot. We promise to do better. And when we don't, we compromise the ability of future researchers to get willing subjects. We live and work in the speech act game called "social science research." It is bound by constraints that don't exit in some other language games. On Sep 3, 2007, at 1:56 PM, Gilbert B. Rodman wrote:
Sure, Ed ... but that doesn't get at Lois' question about what (if anything) is *uniquely* dangerous about researchers in this regard. The very same processes of interpreting, labeling, repackaging, and redistributing, after all, are routinely used by journalists, politicians, preachers, bloggers, and then some. And, given the large discrepancies in audience size between, say, CNN and _New media and society_, any legitimate fears of possible "repackaging" are probably better directed at the "repackagers" who reach tens of millions of people (on a bad day), rather than the ones who reach hundreds (on a good one).
ard Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Multimedia Program and Department of Communication Co-Director, New Media Center 1501 W. Bradley Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 309-677-2378 <http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html> <http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/> AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam Second Life: Professor Beliveau
Three things: (1) You're still dodging Lois' question -- i.e., what's specifically harmful about researcher access that doesn't factor into the harm done by other people's access? The person whose words have been "repackaged" in "harmful" ways isn't going to feel less harmed depending on whether the "repackager" was allegedly bound by "institutionalized ethics" or not. (2) It's a side issue whether they actually live up to such an ethic or not, but I suspect most journalists and preachers and politicians would certainly claim that they are "responsible to [an] institutionalized ethic" of one sort or another. (3) Not all researchers are social scientists. Unless, of course, you're trying to claim that folks who work in the arts or the humanities are somehow not really researchers. cheers gil Ed Lamoureux wrote:
Gilbert " journalists, politicians, preachers, bloggers," are NOT social scientific researchers responsible to that institutionalized ethic. They don't promise their universities (and the government and society in general) to protect human subjects. You are right, they can do anything they darn well please (within the confines of the ethics of their genre). We cannot. We promise to do better. And when we don't, we compromise the ability of future researchers to get willing subjects. We live and work in the speech act game called "social science research." It is bound by constraints that don't exit in some other language games.
On Sep 3, 2007, at 1:56 PM, Gilbert B. Rodman wrote:
Sure, Ed ... but that doesn't get at Lois' question about what (if anything) is *uniquely* dangerous about researchers in this regard. The very same processes of interpreting, labeling, repackaging, and redistributing, after all, are routinely used by journalists, politicians, preachers, bloggers, and then some. And, given the large discrepancies in audience size between, say, CNN and _New media and society_, any legitimate fears of possible "repackaging" are probably better directed at the "repackagers" who reach tens of millions of people (on a bad day), rather than the ones who reach hundreds (on a good one).
ard Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Multimedia Program and Department of Communication Co-Director, New Media Center 1501 W. Bradley Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 309-677-2378 <http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html> <http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/> AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam Second Life: Professor Beliveau
_______________________________________________ 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/
Journalists routinely "process" information before writing, and they often present conclusions in their written work. It is a LONG running IRB discussion why they are exempt from Human Subjects rules...but they are on the U.S. Federal level. I understand that some universities are looking at making changes locally, and if they do more than pilot a requirement I will be watching closely. In fact, I know of more than one case where a researcher/journalist asked for and received IRB approval for a project and published about "approved" and "unapproved" work from the same project. The first was done as a social scientist, the second as a journalist. Is it ethical? Well I think that depends on how you look at issues like those we are discussing here. Ed, I find it to be an incomplete argument that we are held to a higher standard then any of the other career paths you listed. In fact, I would almost bet that at least people reading this list has held one of those titles and been a social science researcher at the same time. And many of us blog and do social science research at the same time. As a blogger my work has been studied and used as data in dissertations, and theses some with my permission some without. Most of these products are available in whole or in part as digital text online. So someone can search on either my given name or my blog's name and eventually find these published works. I can tell you truthfully that I have never received a notifiable increase in visits to my blog after one is published. But the day I was "Feedster Feed of the Day," back in 2005, I exhausted my monthly bandwidth by noon PST - in fact in two days I used as much bandwidth as I had in the previous eleven months. Was I asked if I wanted to be included...no...I was not. Did my inclusion have a cost to me...you bet, I had to pay money to up my bandwidth for the month, and from then forward as my readership grew. Was I injured...well if you want to see it that way, sure I was. Of course I also see the positive side of this as well...I got more readers and that was cool. My point is that lots of other viewers have the power to cause much more harm than anything I do with my research. It's an issue of "potential" harm first - and you plan to address all likely potentials - and then you learn from mistakes and unexpected outcomes after...that is the nature of social science research. 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 Ed Lamoureux <ell@bumail.bradley.edu>:
" journalists, politicians, preachers, bloggers," are NOT social scientific researchers responsible to that institutionalized ethic. They don't promise their universities (and the government and society in general) to protect human subjects. You are right, they can do anything they darn well please (within the confines of the ethics of their genre). We cannot. We promise to do better. And when we don't, we compromise the ability of future researchers to get willing subjects. We live and work in the speech act game called "social science research." It is bound by constraints that don't exit in some other language games.
I feel that this paragraph needs separate discussion, so I'm addressing most of it here rather then in my previous post. The underlying issues here disturb me as much and probably more than those I see underlying my original question. Setting the specifics of online research ethics aside for a second, why would one see social science researchers as inherently more "ethical" than "journalists, politicians, preachers"? Why would "bloggers" be lumped unilaterally with these three professions? Lots of professionals, including academics blog...many chronicle their personal lives and say little if anything about their professional work. If I were to take this paragraph on face value it appears that social science researchers don't need professional level or disciplinary level ethical statements because our ethics would transcend any such document...I guess our ethics should be so high that both natural and academic language cannot encompass them. The paragraph also implies that there is a one-size-fits-all answer that only unethical researchers would dispute - an issues that I commented on a couple of times in the previous ethics thread. Those that worked on the original AoIR Ethics Statement had a significant mountain to climb to significantly encompass online research in one document, since "online research" is by no means a single discipline or method. Personally, I work at cross-roads between a variety of disciplines including but not limited to - information science (often considered a non-social science), linguistics, cultural anthropology, communication, education, media studies, and performance studies (also often considered a non-social science). Products of my research will range from classroom papers, to paper-only journals and edited volumes, as well as digital publications, and on to performance pieces. I am a qualitative researcher whose work ranges from the more number heavy, statistical, end of the continuum all the way to autoethnographic work on the other. I work with adult subjects (over 25 years of age), emerging adulthood (20-25) subjects, and adolescents (ages 10 -19). I find it impossible to see how one research ethics statement or any single inherent ethical belief system can encompass all of my research with these diverse variables...and of course this list doesn't begin to capture the "ethical" and legal issues those of us who do geographical boundary spanning must at least consider when we design our studies. Legal systems vary around the world, as do ethical systems. I completely agree that when we do research badly we may potentially injure the research that comes after us. However in considering those future researchers, as well as our current participants, we need to be open to both the positives and negatives of any research project...including "protection" of participants, informed consent, and research design. I readily admit that I have an underlying belief that shows through all of my discussion. My belief is that by requiring "informed consent" for all social science research that we would limit researchers participant pools to those that will volunteer for a study. Again that takes me very close to experimental research. And while there is nothing at all wrong with experimental research as a method, I don't believe it gets us to the real hows and whys of human behavior. I am an explanatory researcher, without the ability to study "in the wild" I might as well pack up my toys and go home. Finally, I believe that we need to separate "ethical" discussions from "legal" ones. Ethics underly laws, or at least we hope they do. The one thing we can be sure of is that legal systems lag behind the cultural changes that drive and are driven by changes in ethical frameworks. As educated people we should consider both and act as our good judgment, and the judgment of our peers through vetting, advises us to do...based on the specifics of our research environments, our methods, our subjects, and our professional spheres. In my world there is on one-size-fits-all or even -most...of course that is true for most of my gray world not just my research life. 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
In addition to the points that Louis made below, it is worth considering that many people with a public internet presence are busy and receive numerous Emails. I suspect that most requests to these busy people would just be erased regardless of the potential participants desire or lack thereof to be included in a study. The result would be a sample that is not representative. Charlie Balch -----Original Message----- Quoting Lois Ann Scheidt I readily admit that I have an underlying belief that shows through all of my discussion. My belief is that by requiring "informed consent" for all social science research that we would limit researchers participant pools to those that will volunteer for a study. Again that takes me very close to experimental research. And while there is nothing at all wrong with experimental research as a method, I don't believe it gets us to the real hows and whys of human behavior. I am an explanatory researcher, without the ability to study "in the wild" I might as well pack up my toys and go home.
participants (8)
-
Charlie Balch -
Ed Lamoureux -
elw＠stderr.org -
Gilbert B. Rodman -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Lois Ann Scheidt -
Marcela Musgrove -
Radhika Gajjala