[Air-L] Ethics of a student project

Mark D. Johns mjohns at luther.edu
Thu Aug 21 05:36:14 PDT 2014


Your gut is a good guide, but probably informed consent is sufficient, as
you mention, so long as the "stalking" is limited to openly accessible
information.

Some questions to consider, however: How will the data be safeguarded? How
much of the data will be revealed in the paper? What will happen to the
data after the project ends? How will the participants be involved, and to
what degree will they be allowed to "own" their own data after it has been
collected?

[Note: I am a member of the AoIR Ethics Committee, but this email is not
intended to speak for that group.]

--
Mark D. Johns, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Communication Studies
Acting Department Head, Fall 2014
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA
-----------------------------------------------
"Get the facts first. You can distort them later."
    ---Mark Twain


On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 7:05 AM, Jill Walker Rettberg <
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
>
> Blog - http://jilltxt.net
> 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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