[Air-L] software for online ethnography

Darryl Woodford dp.woodford at qut.edu.au
Thu Feb 23 22:23:34 PST 2012


Hi David,

It's definitely a consideration, and something your IRB may or may not object to. I don't imagine you'd have a problem using it for collection of web resources (blogs, forums, websites etc) - which is probably it's main advantage with the clipping functionality, but interviews are more restrictive.  One solution may be to keep the original copy in whatever format your IRB require (locked filing cabinet / university computer system), but keep the tagged / anonymised version 'in the cloud', though I think the best answer is just to clarify with your own board, as in my experience they've varied widely by country & even by institution.

As for using it as a mode of communication, I have never given it much thought. I don't think it is any different in terms of sharing resources than services like Dropbox, but again it likely depends on your own boards requirements & understanding of the technology.

Cheers,

Darryl

On 24 Feb 2012, at 06:58, David Toews wrote:

> Hi Darryl,
> 
> I appreciated your post about Evernote.  I've downloaded it to try, and it does
> seem quite useful for a free product.  One function I'm interested in is the
> sharing notebooks feature, which I'm thinking might enable me to share
> fieldnotes among my four research assistants.
> 
> However, it occurs to me that one might need to think through the ethics
> implications of sharing information related to participants through a web-based
> service like this.  I realize that access to the sharing of this information is
> password protected, but is that enough?  Further to that, I'm wondering also,
> if one has a project for which one has submitted an ethics protocol to an IRB,
> if you feel one needs to specify Evernote as a mode of communication among the
> research team.  (I'm not thinking here at all of using it to communicate with
> participants, just among research team members).
> 
> Any advice? Or does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
> 
> Best,
> David
> 
> www.onlinesociability.org
> -- 
> Dr. David Toews, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> Sociology Department
> York University
> 2060 Vari Hall
> 4700 Keele Street
> Toronto, Ontario
> Canada M3J 1P3
> Tel. 416-736-2100 ext. 60307
> Fax. 416-736-5370
> dtoews at yorku.ca
> 
> Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/dtoews
> 
> 
> Quoting Darryl Woodford <dp.woodford at qut.edu.au>:
> 
>> Hi Ashley,
>> 
>> In terms of software for storing / indexing this data I recommend Evernote --
>> it has 'clip to' functionality from most browsers for sites/blogs/tweets (you
>> can select the text and only copy a particular tweet), 'clip from clipboard'
>> for Mac/Windows so you can copy/paste from anywhere for IRC/other platforms,
>> and easy import of documents/pdf's/text files for interviews. Combine that
>> with a decent category/tag system and I think it provides most of what you
>> need -- I have been using it for my research (ethnography of a virtual gaming
>> environment & associated communities) for some time now.
>> 
>> Kind Regards,
>> 
>> Darryl Woodford
>> PhD Candidate | Sessional Academic,
>> Creative Industries Faculty
>> Queensland University of Technology
>> 
>> 
>> On 18 Feb 2012, at 09:06, Ashley Hinck wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> Does anyone have a recommendation for software to use for online
>>> ethnography? I'm looking for something to organize artifacts from a
>>> variety of sources, including websites, tumblrs, forums, tweets,
>>> interviews, etc. I don't necessarily need the software to help me
>>> analyze data, but need something to help manage artifacts from a variety
>>> of sources. I've been following the discussion of how best to archive
>>> websites, but I was wondering if there might be software that can
>>> integrate data from multiple platforms. I'm trying to construct an
>>> archive of the online communication of a particular community that uses
>>> multiple platforms.
>>> 
>>> Any help would be much appreciated. =)
>>> 
>>> -Ashley
>>> 
>>> --
>>> 
>>> Ashley Hinck
>>> 
>>> Teaching Assistant and PhD Student in Rhetoric
>>> 
>>> Communication Arts Department
>>> 
>>> The University of Wisconsin-Madison
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>>> 
>>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>>> http://www.aoir.org/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>> 
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/
>> 
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> 
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/




Darryl Woodford
PhD Candidate | Sessional Academic,
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology

E-Mail: darryl at dpwoodford.net | dp.woodford at qut.edu.au
Mobile (AU): 0449881920
Skype: santow




More information about the Air-L mailing list