3.10- 4.00 Online ethics and conclusions
-Clare and Tris
6
Structure
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Online research ethics: some thoughts
Group activity- Ethical Scenarios
Discussion
Further resources
Conclusions, the future
1. Online research ethics
• There is currently a big push to embed research ethics
more formally in the culture of the social sciences.
– Economic and Social Research Council (2005).
Research Ethics Framework.
– University of Leicester (2006). Research Ethics
Concerning Human Subjects.
• Yet there is far less of a consensus about online
research ethics.
• This asks the question “is there anything special about
the online environment that requires new set of ethical
guidelines?”
Ethical decision making and Internet research
• Ess, C. and AoIR Ethics Working Committee (2002)
Ethical decision-making and internet research:
recommendations form the AoIR ethics working
committee.
http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf.
• This stresses “Ethical pluralism” and argues that “there
is more than one ethical decision-making framework
used to analyze and resolve those [internet
research]conflicts.”
• It is also worth noting that the online world of “email,
chatrooms, webpages, various forms of “instant
messaging, MUDs and MOOs, USENET newsgroups,
described in this report in 2002 is now radically
transformed.
Where does it fit in?
One of the problems of mapping existing research ethics
onto the online world is the difficulty of deciding how to
categorise the spaces that you are observing/interacting
with.
Public
Private
Published
Informal
Writing
Speech
Personal
Anonymous
Broadcast
Identified
Ethical Challenges
“The great variety of human inter/actions
observable online and the clear need to study
these inter/actions in interdisciplinary ways
…This interdisciplinary approach to research
leads, however, to a central ethical difficulty: the
primary assumptions and guiding metaphors and
analogies - and thus the resulting ethical codes can vary sharply from discipline to discipline,
especially as we shift from the social sciences.
Ess, C. and AoIR Ethics Working Committee (2002)
Informed consent
• How will you gain informed consent?
• How can the participant withdrawal from the
research? Is it easier or harder to withdraw
compared to face-to-face research?
• Is deception a defensible research strategy?
Can 'lurking' as socialisation into the online
culture of a group be an important prerequisite
for research?
Confidentiality
• How can confidentiality be assured and how
might this vary with the nature of the research
venue? (e.g. Chat rooms compared to
weblogs, webpages, emails to large listservs).
• How might subject anonymity be achieved in
practice?
• How can you improve data security? Can you
promise that your electronic information will not
be accessed and used by others?
Privacy
• Can you agree whether the data you collect will
be public or private?
• How might participant expectations of privacy
vary with specific research method used?
• How useful are legal definitions of privacy and
requirements for data projection?
• How do we respond to highly subjective
readings of the culture or expectations of
online communities?
International inequalities
• Are there ethical implications in researching
places we’ve never been and people we’ve
never met?
• How does the digital divide limit who can we
'speak' to?
• Can you assume people can speak freely on
the internet? Censorship issues?
• What languages are we going to use? How
might this limit who can we speak to?
• What online inequalities might be significant?
2. Ethical Scenarios
10
• 8 groups of 3 or 4 people
• Have a look at the ethics form submitted by this
project.
• What ethical issues does it raise?
• What ethical issues does it raise that are particular to
the online environment?
Further reading
• Ethics section on the site
(http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/ORM/ethics/ethconte
nts.htm)
– References
– Further resources
– Case studies
4. Further resources
a. The site
http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/orm/index.htm
Tour of the site: Key sections
Site link
Modules
Module index
Site rationale
In Exploring Online Methods we
recognise this methodological
and ethical complexity.
The user can explore these in the
way that best suits them.
•Case studies
•Learning activities
•Resources
•References and links
•A print version
Examples: Case Studies
Module index
Tim
Vorley
(University
Neil
Penny
Coulson
Cholmondeley
and
of
Leicester),
Critical
Rebecca
(University
Knibb
ofAAlberta).
Geography
of
(University
Evaluating the
of UK
Derby).
'WISEST
Biotechnology
How
(Women
an Online
in
Support
Network
Scholarship,
Affects
the of
•Featured
in a number
Experience
Engineering,ofScience
Living
sections.
with
and Technology)'
a Food Allergy.
•The
case study
Resource
Network.
•This caseisstudy
used
to
displayed
a Q+A
about
discuss
• This
case
recruitment
study
used
for
the
technical
aspects
ofto
online
discuss
questionnaires
good practice in
the
questionaire.
through
gaining consent.
soliciting visitors
to web sites.
Reference tool
Site link
• While you are using the site you can collect
references.
• Click on the reference you want to bring up the
full reference and add it to your reference list
• Choose Open my reference list to see the
references you have collected.
• Save or print the list before you finish using the
site.
Summary of the site
You can find
• Information
• Tips/hints
• Technical advice
• Methodological
discussion
• Theoretical discussion
• Case studies
• Learning activities
For
Research
design
Solving
practical
problems
Self-directed
learning
Teaching
b. Tri-orm online advanced module
Exploring online methods site
Manchester
workshops
enhancements
build network
Accredited
online course
for advanced users
enhancements
Leicester
workshops
self-directed study
enhancements
Cardiff
workshops
Feeding in other enhancements
How the online course will work
Expert feedback and support
Researcher in need of
online skills
Enrol
on
course
Online
learning
materials
Produce
pilot
research
project
Online
discussion
Build
network
s
Informed by the pedagogic framework outlined in
E-tivities and E-moderating (Salmon, 2000; 2002).
5. General dissuasion
•
•
•
•
•
Any questions?
How can we improve the training?
Evaluation
Online futures
Thank-you
Some concluding comments about the future
of ORM
• Public and private communication seem to be
becoming more blurred, posing ethical, practical and
methodological questions
• Students and spammers are overusing online research
because it is easy to do. Responsible use is essential
i.e. don’t ask people to provide information that is
available elsewhere
• The technical difficulties still provide a barrier to
undertaking online research e.g. we don’t have MSN or
Second Life at Leicester
• Text based interactions still predominate with
corresponding strengths and weaknesses
• We talk about online research more than we do it.
There is still a need to build up a critical mass of
practice
The future
• How will a truly multi-media web change the way we
undertake research?
• What possibilities are offered by Web 2.0
technologies?
• As IT becomes more embedded in people’s every day
life will it be possible to differentiate between online
and onsite methodologies?
• In short: How can we define a methodology and
ethical approach against a rapidly changing
technological background?