[Air-L] Anonymizing qual interview data?

[Ming-Yi Wu]

Hi, Cory and All,

For the reporting part, your students may simply provide the demographic information that describes the participants, instead of mentioning their names, when they write the research reports with quotes. For example, your students may say a female business professional said “...”.  By doing so, your students can protect the participants’ privacy and not specify their names.

However, to be safe, you may double check with your university’s institutional review board (IRB) officer and see whether it is fine to do so.  To my understanding, we need to get IRB approval for academic research projects first before collecting primary data in the U.S.  If you are in other countries, there might be different regulations.  But, it’s always important to check the data collection and reporting policies first.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Ming-Yi

Ming-Yi Wu, Ph.D
Graduate Faculty 
Northeastern University


Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 7, 2021, at 10:51 AM, Douglas Zytko <zytko at oakland.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Cory,
> 
> Your question seems to go beyond attributing quotes in theses, and more
> about protecting the underlying data. Does your university have an
> institutional review board (IRB) or equivalent? Did these studies go
> through any kind of review process? Universities commonly have their own
> internal requirements for protecting participants and maintaining anonymity
> with qual research.
> 
>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 3:47 AM Cory Robinson <cory.robinson at liu.se> wrote:
>> 
>> HI all,
>> 
>> Two Master’s students I recently met are conducting recorded interviews
>> resulting in texts they will code and quote within their theses. I have
>> given input about how to protect the recorded interviews (encrypted,
>> password protected, not stored in the cloud). I do not work with qual data,
>> so I need help recommending methodology or help for anonymizing quotes in
>> their thesis.
>> 
>> (I am inquiring about this for a student, that unfortunately, has not
>> received helpful advice from their supervisor). ☹
>> 
>> The students assumed they would assign each participating an
>> identification number, and then attribute the quote and ID # in their
>> thesis. However, I feel there is surely a better way to ensure anonymity?
>> (Too easy to reidentify if research data was obtained).
>> 
>> What methods do you utilize for anonymizing individual interview data? Or
>> manuscripts/books helpful for this? Sadly, the students are nearing the end
>> of the study, but late is better than never. (It’s indeed a failure of
>> universities, as well as unequipped supervisors!)
>> 
>> Best,
>> Cory
>> --
>> Senior Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Communication Design
>> Linköping University
>> P: +46 (0)11 36 36 38
>> E: cory.robinson at liu.se<mailto:cory.robinson at liu.se>
>> http://liu-se.academia.edu/StephenCoryRobinson<
>> http://colostate.academia.edu/StephenCoryRobinson>
>> Founder, Nordic Privacy Center (nordicprivacy.org<
>> https://nordicprivacy.org/>)
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Douglas Zytko, PhD
> Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction
> Director of Oakland HCI Lab
> Oakland University
> Department of Computer Science and Engineering
> dougzytko.com
> 
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