[Air-L] Ethics of a student project

Nathan Stolero stolero at gmail.com
Thu Aug 21 06:16:04 PDT 2014


Dear Jill and all,

Your question reminds me an article published in The Chronicle, in
April. Here's
the article
<http://chronicle.com/article/Confronting-the-Myth-of-the/145949/>. It
starts with a description of a similar activity, conducted by Prof. Eszter
Hargittai from Northwestern U with her students. In the first lesson she
starts with a "gut check", telling the class everything she knows about
them, just from online information in the public sphere. Therefore, these
things are done and it might be a good idea to ask her advice about the
ethical concerns (as far as I understand, she used this "gut check" without
letting her students know before that she is going to do so). I myself
never had the gut to do it to my students, although I think it is a
brilliant idea (but not to a class of 100+ students, which is the case in
my situation).

Since we are talking about a research conducted by an undergraduate
student, with a limited scope, I'd suggest one precaution in addition to
previous suggestions: First, the interviews should not be with other people
whom the student knows personally. They must be complete strangers to him.
The advantage of this precaution, in my view, is that it replicates the
conditions of the internet-sphere, where you are well aware that the
information is public, but yet still don't have the notion that you are
exposing yourself to familiar people. It also prevents awkward situations
that the student will reveal something about a person he knows, that might
embarrass them both in the situation of the interview.

These are my two pennies,

Nathan Stolero
Instructor and PhD Candidate
The Department of Communication
Tel Aviv University
Israel




On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 3:05 PM, 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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