[Air-L] Ethics of a student project

Unger, Johann j.unger at lancaster.ac.uk
Thu Aug 21 05:27:32 PDT 2014


Hi Jill,

Just off the top of my head, I'm not sure an advisor's feelings about whether they'd feel comfortable participating should necessarily determine whether the research should go ahead - otherwise we'd have very little research into contentious social issues like drug abuse, criminality, etc., never mind medical research. However, I think you're perfectly right to raise possible concerns. In my view these could be mitigated by very clear information about the project when consent is sought, and the introduction of some "exit routes" for participants. For instance, participants could be asked to specify if there is any information that, if found, would lead them to be automatically excluded as participants. As an example, a participant could say that if the researcher found that there was evidence of underage drinking / some other minor misdemeanour (or major misdemeanour for that matter), their participation in the project would end and all data about them would be deleted from the researcher's records. This could also apply at the interview stage, whereby a participant could indicate if they are feeling uncomfortable at any point.

Another option might be to involve the participants in the research process more - in other words, invite them to sit with the researcher while the googling/searching is happening. They could then say if they felt anything was making them uncomfortable, and ask the researcher to stop. Of course if this interaction was recorded, this could also lead to valuable data. The downside is this would be quite time consuming...

I think the key question for me would be, given there is a risk of harm to the participants (embarrassment, distress etc.), what are the benefits that could/would accrue, either to individual participants or more broadly to society? If there is no clear answer to this question, the research should probably not go ahead. I would think many of us on this list can think of potential benefits, but if one of my students were interested in doing this type of research I would ask them to think this through carefully.

Best, Johnny.

Dr J W Unger
Lecturer and Academic Director of Summer Programmes
Department of Linguistics and English Language
Lancaster University
LA1 4YL

e-mail: j.unger at lancaster.ac.uk<mailto:j.unger at lancaster.ac.uk>
tel: +44 1524 592591<tel:+44%201524%20592591>
Follow me on Twitter @johnnyunger<http://twitter.com/#!/johnnyunger>

On 21 Aug 2014, at 13:05, "Jill Walker Rettberg" <Jill.Walker.Rettberg at lle.uib.no<mailto:Jill.Walker.Rettberg at lle.uib.no>> wrote:

One of our upper-level undergrads would like to write a paper about privacy using a slightly unusual methodology: he wants to find five informants who are willing to let him google them exhaustively in order to find out everything he can about them using legal, public online methods. Then he wants to show each informant the information and interview them, asking things like "did you know this information about you was accessible?" and more in order to find out something about what information people think is available about them, what is actually available about them, and how people feel about all the information out there about them and the possible disconnect between what they think and what is in fact out there.

My gut reaction is that I wouldn't want to let a researcher "stalk" me online like that, and if I wouldn't want to be an informant maybe I shouldn't allow the project, right? But I'm also guessing that the project might be approved by the ethics board so long as there is clear, informed consent. And it'd be interesting to see the results.

But beyond the ethics board: what do you think about a methodology like this? Do you share my gut reaction or am I overreacting? Would you let a student do it? And what might be better ways for a student to do a small scale research project on this topic?

Jill


Jill Walker Rettberg
Professor of Digital Culture
Dept of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies
University of Bergen
Postboks 7800
5020 Bergen

+ 47 55588431

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Twitter - http://twitter.com/jilltxt

My latest book, Blogging (2nd ed), will be available from Polity from September 20: http://www.politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=0745663648





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