Ethics considerations in usage of skype for telephone interviews
Hi all! After having been sensibilzed by Nick Jankowski about ethics in Online research at the ECREA Summer School, I would like to ask a question to experienced scholars. I am considering to use skype to achieve telephone interviews in the course of my fieldwork, for my phd thesis. May I consider Skype as yet-another telephonic device or do I have to achieve a deeper reflection regarding ethics? I am not pretty sure of all challenges involved in IP telephony, especially as I am about to interview competitive intelligence managers. Thank you for your help! Jeremy -- Jeremy Depauw The Power of Knoweldge Sharing and Skills Synegism Journal de recherche: http://dev.ulb.ac.be/~jdepauw/dotclear/index.php
One of my grad students used skype as it made it very easy to record the interviews (and was cheaper too of course - some of his interviewees were non-UK based). He then converted them to MP3s so he could replay them on iTunes & his ipod to transcribe (& reflect/ cogitate). We could think of no additional ethical considerations but did find that mp3 files have a habit of leaking - e.g. when iTunes auto-scans your laptop and pulls them all into your music library which then happens to be set to be shared on your local network... And also tells iLike & last.fm which interviews you are currently listening to/ transcribing. A bit problematic when the title of the track is the interviewee's name... So its important to label them with meaningless identifiers... and keep them away from things like iTunes. B On 14 Sep 2007, at 08:12, Jeremy Depauw wrote:
Hi all!
After having been sensibilzed by Nick Jankowski about ethics in Online research at the ECREA Summer School, I would like to ask a question to experienced scholars. I am considering to use skype to achieve telephone interviews in the course of my fieldwork, for my phd thesis.
May I consider Skype as yet-another telephonic device or do I have to achieve a deeper reflection regarding ethics? I am not pretty sure of all challenges involved in IP telephony, especially as I am about to interview competitive intelligence managers.
---- Dr Ben Anderson Deputy Director, Chimera, the Institute for Social and Technical Research University of Essex +44 (0) 7710 187 806 rss: http://istr.wordpress.com/feed web: http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/
My biggest concern with the transition you outlined is potential access to the material by people outside the project. This tends to be a storage issue...every piece of digital equipment used to store interview data should be locked down and access limited to only those involved with the project. Plus the iPOD should not be one that gets carried around to listen to either the recorded interviews or music. I can see how the conversion to MP3 is useful but the iPOD part makes me more than a bit nervous. I do think that our data should be easy for us to use, but not so "easy" that anyone can get a hold of it. I guess if they are using the iPOD in a secure place (no I don't mean a vault, though our IRB frowns on identified data being stored or used in dorm rooms) and then it is locked up when not being used for the project...I can probably live with it. I've been playing with some freeware that encrypts a virtual drive (http://www.newsoftwares.net/folderlock/). I'm questing now in planning for protecting voice and text interviews for my dissertation. So far I am impressed, it even has a master password so you can unlock any of your locked files if you forget folder specific passwords. Personally I locked the first level folder and didn't mess with individual locks. I reserve the right to change that decision at a later date. I should note that there has been a lot of conversation on an IRB listserv I receive, that leads me to believe data encryption requirements are around the corner for many large research institutions in the U.S. In short so many laptops are being used and carried around by the researchers...just watch the mass media to see examples of access issues related to stolen and lost laptops. I'm trying to learn the technologies before I'm told I have to do use them...I would recommend the same to those on this list. 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 Ben Anderson <benander@essex.ac.uk>:
One of my grad students used skype as it made it very easy to record the interviews (and was cheaper too of course - some of his interviewees were non-UK based). He then converted them to MP3s so he could replay them on iTunes & his ipod to transcribe (& reflect/ cogitate).
We could think of no additional ethical considerations but did find that mp3 files have a habit of leaking - e.g. when iTunes auto-scans your laptop and pulls them all into your music library which then happens to be set to be shared on your local network... And also tells iLike & last.fm which interviews you are currently listening to/ transcribing. A bit problematic when the title of the track is the interviewee's name...
So its important to label them with meaningless identifiers... and keep them away from things like iTunes.
B
On 14 Sep 2007, at 08:12, Jeremy Depauw wrote:
Hi all!
After having been sensibilzed by Nick Jankowski about ethics in Online research at the ECREA Summer School, I would like to ask a question to experienced scholars. I am considering to use skype to achieve telephone interviews in the course of my fieldwork, for my phd thesis.
May I consider Skype as yet-another telephonic device or do I have to achieve a deeper reflection regarding ethics? I am not pretty sure of all challenges involved in IP telephony, especially as I am about to interview competitive intelligence managers.
---- Dr Ben Anderson Deputy Director, Chimera, the Institute for Social and Technical Research University of Essex +44 (0) 7710 187 806 rss: http://istr.wordpress.com/feed web: http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/
_______________________________________________ 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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I used standard 1024 bit key encryption for storage of electronic documents. I stored the key separately in a different locked cabinet. This was 4 years ago and that still seems to be a fairly standard option for storing electronic records. I deleted the electronic versions of the records after 3 years. The paper transcriptions still exist. That was what I had agreed to with the interviewees.
I use Truecrypt on my laptop, and keep all of my data there. The idea being that if my laptop did get stolen/compromised, it would be very very difficult for my data to be found. I just didn't feel comfortable with only my laptop password as security! I hope this becomes standard practice in the future. monica Monica Barratt PhD Student National Drug Research Institute http://db.ndri.curtin.edu.au/staff.asp?persid=650 http://www.linkedin.com/in/mbarratt On 15/09/2007, Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
I used standard 1024 bit key encryption for storage of electronic documents. I stored the key separately in a different locked cabinet. This was 4 years ago and that still seems to be a fairly standard option for storing electronic records. I deleted the electronic versions of the records after 3 years. The paper transcriptions still exist. That was what I had agreed to with the interviewees. _______________________________________________ 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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i would treat it as a telephone without much further consideration/ information. here, I'd speclate the primary concern is privacy and protection of data. I do not think that the infrastructure or surveillance/interception capacities in skype differ from modern telephony except perhaps in the off chance that your personal computer may have any number of issues, but i doubt that anyone would use such an attack just to capture skype calls, so i'd think that would be moot.
Thank you for your answers. I am happy to see that it does not seem to worry you more than that. I will keep to discuss this around me and see if any other opinions arise here... Jeremy 2007/9/14, Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu>:
i would treat it as a telephone without much further consideration/ information. here, I'd speclate the primary concern is privacy and protection of data. I do not think that the infrastructure or surveillance/interception capacities in skype differ from modern telephony except perhaps in the off chance that your personal computer may have any number of issues, but i doubt that anyone would use such an attack just to capture skype calls, so i'd think that would be moot. _______________________________________________ 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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-- Jeremy Depauw The Power of Knoweldge Sharing and Skills Synegism Journal de recherche: http://dev.ulb.ac.be/~jdepauw/dotclear/index.php
Not that I am an experienced scholar, ;), but I don't really see any differences either. With one exception, and that is that you will be adding eachother to eachothers contact lists (I assume) and that these contact lists are continously connected in a way that oldschool paper address books are not (you'll still be able to see echothers online status, changes of profile picture e.tc. after the project is over). So you'll have to figure out when/if it is going to be appropriate to end that connection, i.e. delete eachother from the contact lists. Or if you want to create a special Skype account just for this particular research. -asa Asa Rosenberg Department of sociology P.O. Box 720 SE 705 30 GOTEBORG asa.rosenberg@sociology.gu.se SL-Name: Kid Kuhn -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fran: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org]For Jeremy Depauw Skickat: den 14 september 2007 15:44 Till: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Amne: Re: [Air-L] Ethics considerations in usage of skype for telephoneinterviews Thank you for your answers. I am happy to see that it does not seem to worry you more than that. I will keep to discuss this around me and see if any other opinions arise here... Jeremy 2007/9/14, Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu>:
i would treat it as a telephone without much further consideration/ information. here, I'd speclate the primary concern is privacy and protection of data. I do not think that the infrastructure or surveillance/interception capacities in skype differ from modern telephony except perhaps in the off chance that your personal computer may have any number of issues, but i doubt that anyone would use such an attack just to capture skype calls, so i'd think that would be moot. _______________________________________________ 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/
-- Jeremy Depauw The Power of Knoweldge Sharing and Skills Synegism Journal de recherche: http://dev.ulb.ac.be/~jdepauw/dotclear/index.php _______________________________________________ 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/
Good point, thank you. In this case, I was considering avoid this problem by using a fix phone number. That's the point of using Skype. It is 0,01€/minutes in loads of countries. I would enable me to extend my scope of contact in a cheap way... I have to say that I didn't imagine that I could contact a manager with its "Skype ID", if he has one. But this remark has to be taken into account I think... Thank you ;-) Jeremy 2007/9/14, Asa Rosenberg <asa.rosenberg@sociology.gu.se>:
Not that I am an experienced scholar, ;), but I don't really see any differences either. With one exception, and that is that you will be adding eachother to eachothers contact lists (I assume) and that these contact lists are continously connected in a way that oldschool paper address books are not (you'll still be able to see echothers online status, changes of profile picture e.tc. after the project is over). So you'll have to figure out when/if it is going to be appropriate to end that connection, i.e. delete eachother from the contact lists. Or if you want to create a special Skype account just for this particular research.
-asa
Asa Rosenberg Department of sociology P.O. Box 720 SE 705 30 GOTEBORG asa.rosenberg@sociology.gu.se SL-Name: Kid Kuhn
-----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fran: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org]For Jeremy Depauw Skickat: den 14 september 2007 15:44 Till: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Amne: Re: [Air-L] Ethics considerations in usage of skype for telephoneinterviews
Thank you for your answers. I am happy to see that it does not seem to worry you more than that. I will keep to discuss this around me and see if any other opinions arise here...
Jeremy
2007/9/14, Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu>:
i would treat it as a telephone without much further consideration/ information. here, I'd speclate the primary concern is privacy and protection of data. I do not think that the infrastructure or surveillance/interception capacities in skype differ from modern telephony except perhaps in the off chance that your personal computer may have any number of issues, but i doubt that anyone would use such an attack just to capture skype calls, so i'd think that would be moot. _______________________________________________ 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/
-- Jeremy Depauw
The Power of Knoweldge Sharing and Skills Synegism Journal de recherche: http://dev.ulb.ac.be/~jdepauw/dotclear/index.php _______________________________________________ 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/
-- Jeremy Depauw The Power of Knoweldge Sharing and Skills Synegism Journal de recherche: http://dev.ulb.ac.be/~jdepauw/dotclear/index.php
participants (6)
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Asa Rosenberg -
Ben Anderson -
Jeremy Depauw -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Lois Ann Scheidt -
Monica Barratt