[Air-L] Online research ethics

[Steve Jones]

This connects to an interesting discussion I've had in another  
context, which has to do with whether, when one is doing research in  
Second Life, observations of, or interactions with, avatars are  
observations of or interactions with human subjects. I'm curious to  
know what others think.

Thanks,
Sj

On Mar 7, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:

>>
>> I think one could do citation analysis without IRB approval...though
>> I don't know the actual history of that form of research...because
>> the real unit of analysis is the citation.  What I see happen most
>> often in these discussion is that the online presence of text, pics,
>> etc is being used as an access point to
>> infer about the humans using the technology...that's human subjects
>> research because the real unit of analysis is the person not the
>> online text, pics, whatever.  The online content is an access point
>> to gather information about the people.
>
>
> I disagree, i think one can research systems and representations of
> people without creating human subjects.  It is a question in that case
> of the level of analysis of your inference.  If you are collecting a
> whole bunch of blogs and doing a content analysis to talk about
> bloggers, i do not think you are necessarily doing human subjects
> research, but you could be.  If you stick to describing the blogs and
> the interactions of text and what that means about the people that
> create them that is likely not, but when you talk about an individual
> creator doing things in the world, then you are.  it is the difference
> between talking about the system or society versus talking about the
> person.   You can use documentary evidence still in researching
> subjects without creating a human subject, at least that is the way
> most irb materials read.  documentary materials or data already
> collected and collated by someone else is exempt.
>
>>
>
>
>
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