[Air-l] Ethics

[Charles Ess]

>  on air-l Una McCormack asked:
>
>>  Can anyone give guidance on ethical conduct when quoting material
>>  from publicly
>>  accessible websites? Has the aoir produced any guidelines for this?
>

The aoir ethics working committee is attempting to develop guidelines for
these and other cases encountered in Internet Research (IR).  A preliminary
report is now under discussion by the committee, in preparation for
presentation and further discussion at aoir 2.0.  So I'm afraid that a more
complete response will not be available for another month or so.

BUT - I can report that recent discussion of the question of protecting
subjects' identity has pointed toward the following:

there is _clear_ agreement that we must protect subjects' identity - but
that there are levels of such protection that IR should ensure their
subjects, depending very much on the context of research, ranging from
strong protection (no use of "real" nicknames - e.g., on a Thai webboard as
researched by Dag Elgesem)
to
moderate protection (use of "real" nicknames - e.g., in the case of
chatrooms researched by Malin Svenningson and performance-oriented folk on
IRC as researched by Brenda Danet)
to
no protection (use of nicknames and real subject names when necessary for
research, appropriate permissions have been obtained, etc.)

Again, these are provisional suggestions based on committee members'
experience and discussion.  They need further refinement - especially in
light of cross-cultural differences that we're attempting to identify and
document.  But this may be a good start for your reflection.

Please feel free to forward any questions, suggestions, etc., for
clarification, improvement, additions, and so forth.

Cheers and best wishes,

Charles Ess, Chair
AoIR Research Ethics Working Group
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/aoir/ethics
Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.                   Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435
Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/
"Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.  Persons appear by
entering into relation to other persons." -- Martin Buber, _I and Thou_
"Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art.  One can
merely propose methods." -- Simone de Beauvoir, _The Ethics of Ambiguity_