[Air-L] Online research ethics

[Lois Ann Scheidt]

And if I may add a rule of thumb I've found to work well in thinking 
about what should and should lead to an IRB application in the USA - 
remember that my default is to always apply, especially if you are a 
grad student.  Here's the rule:

If you are studying the site(s) as texts without consideration to the 
issues of the people who wrote the words, placed the pictures, 
etc....then I think you can use the text argument.  HOWEVER, if you are 
using the words or pictures or whatever, on the screen to get at issues 
related to the content creators then you are studying people.  PERIOD.

So from my perspective as soon as you are gathering demographic 
data...you are studying the people and using the text as the tool to do 
that study.  I'm sure a non-human subjects social networking study 
could be - and probably has been - designed but, almost by definition, 
social networking is studying the content creators rather than the 
content.

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 Alecea Standlee <stan0504 at yahoo.com>:

> Dear List Members,
>
> I was hoping I could get some feedback on an ethical
> issue that I am trying to work through with my
> dissertation commitee.
>
> I am conducting community and social network research
> with a group online. Essentially, the group is a
> collection of fiction writer hobbists, who write and
> then 'publish" their work online. They publish in a
> variety of venues, including personal websites, story
> archives and public liveJournals. The interesting data
> (for me) is in the form of their authors notes, where
> the talk to and about other members of their group and
> somewhat in their feedback, which is sometimes posted
> with the stories.
>
> The dilemma is this. How do I consider this group with
> regard to informed consent. I have three different
> sets of recommendations
> 1) One of my advisors argues that the group is posting
> on public websites and explicitly states that their
> stories are for public consumption, so should be
> treated as document data and cited using standard
> citation practices for blogs and websites.
> 2) A second advisor disagrees and argues that the
> group should be considered individual subjects,
> including requests of permission to use statements,
> pseudonyms for screen names and perhaps even consent
> forms of some sort.
> 3) A third person says that no, it should be treated
> as participant observation, that I should inform
> members that I am using data from the authors notes
> and feedback but not require consent forms.
> Specifically, since the participants use screenames
> and thus are unlikely to want to give me access to
> their real names. Their "real" names are anonymous, so
> I should focus on how to protect or not their screen
> names...
>
> What do you all think about the issue? Should I
> contact the authors and not use the feedback, which
> sometimes comes from people "outside" the core group?
> Should I treat it like document websites? I am really
> torn about what the ethical thing to do here is.
>
> Alecea Standlee MA. MA. PhD Student.
> Syracuse University
> Maxwell School of Citizenship
> Department of Sociology
>
>
>
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