[Air-l] internet research and confidentiality

[Mark D. Johns]

At 10:18 AM 12/21/2004, you wrote:
>Hello,
>I am now in the middle of filling out an IRB form for research that I 
>intend to do on blogging practices, and it seems that any research done on 
>"human subjects" must keep personally identifying information 
>confidential.  This is a difficult issue, since one's username and blog 
>title would identify an individual, but they may also be understood as 
>published/public information.  If anyone has encountered a similar 
>situation and can advise as to how I should proceed or who can offer 
>research references that deal with this issue, that would be much appreciated.
>Take care,
>Oriana Gatta
>Women's Studies M.A. candidate
>Georgia State University

Almost ALL of us have encountered this situation, Oriana. It is made all 
the more difficult by the fact that, even if you devise pseudonyms to 
protect your subjects, a simple Google search will turn up the original 
blog and the identity will be revealed. As you work through this struggle 
with your IRB, I strongly suggest that you consult the AoIR ethics 
guidelines, which may be found at
http://aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf
There are no simple solutions here, just difficult decisions that you (and 
your IRB) must make.

------
Mark D. Johns, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor of Communication/Linguistics,
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa
http://faculty.luther.edu/~johnsmar/
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"Get the facts first. You can distort them later."
     ---Mark Twain