Janet Salmons

Following on the post about ethical research online, I want to launch a discussion about sampling and identity. Whenever I discuss the idea of conducting sampling activities online, and then interviewing people online, inevitably the question arises: "how do you know the research participants are who they say they are?"

After all, on the Internet dogs are free to mingle unnoticed...

What do you think? Are you concerned with identity of research participants, and what steps do you, would you take to ensure that you are selecting and interviewing the desired participants?

©2002 The New Yorker Collection from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved

Ethical issues are complex in any setting, and are particularly complex in online interview research. Ethical issues are central to any review by the committee or for academic or scientific merit, as well as to review by institutional review boards.

The chapter (4) on this topic is the biggest in the book-- and themes related to ethical practice are woven throughout other chapters as well.

I'd like to highlight a few inter-related issues in this discussion:

Fair Information Processing, Confidentiality and Informed Consent.

Fair Information Processing refers to protection of data, spelling out that data should be collected for the purpose noted in the agreement, participants should have access to the data and the right to correct inaccuracies. Confidentiality must be honored; personal data are not to be communicated externally without explicit consent.

These issues lead to the third: informed consent. Perhaps the most important ethical principle in research involves actions by researchers to ensure that participation of subjects is voluntarily and will cause no harm.

Researchers seeking informed consent need to make clear to their subjects how material about them and/or from them will be used; the specific uses of material and how their identities will be protected are part of information subjects need to understand before signing an agreement.

Any interviewee must sign a consent agreement, regardless of how casual the interaction may be. There is no ambiguity where that is concerned. However, for other associated research activities many shades of gray are present. So, if you want to complement, prepare for or follow-up your interview with some observations, the question of consent is less clear.

Data collection in “public” face-to-face settings is typically exempt from informed consent when individuals are not identified. Observing people on the street or at a community event could be clearly described as data collection in public. The determination of public versus private space online is not clear cut or universally defined.

After reviewing the literature, I developed a continuum I hope will be useful for people who are trying to determine when trying to determine whether the interaction is public or private.

In other words, according to this model, if you are in a forum (like this one!) and chat with someone with the intention of recording/saving and using the response as data, then it is an "interview" and consent is needed. If you are observing general trends in posting and contribution to a discussion in a setting that is open to the public (such as this one) and do not quote any individual posts, then it could be argued that it is equivalent to observation of a public discussion in a local community center.

 

Hello everyone,

I'd like to demonstrate and discuss some ways to use online tools for online interviews. We can look at the benefits and challenges different kinds of tools offer, and consider implications for research designs.

I am planning one session using Elluminate, a multi-channel meeting space, and one using Vidyo CoroCall, a desktop videoconferencing system. I will post more about these tools later.

Of course, with our global group scheduling is a challenge in itself! Depending on your responses, we may offer more than one session in each tool to accomodate as many people as possible.

Please use these polls to convey your preferences for 1/25 (Elluminate) and 1/29 (CoroCall):

January 25 http://www.doodle.com/yfiym2wnpbm6uxp5
January 29 http://www.doodle.com/7rqephmuzha99hk8

Please indicate your choice by Thursday the 21st so we can make arrangements and get the word out about the schedule.

Thanks!

Janet

The theme for this week is about design factors. I've selected three main themes for discussion-- and feel free to introduce others! Throughout the week, I will post some background information related to these themes as food for thought, and suggest some questions to get your thinking started...and generate discussion.

First, no matter how fun or cool it may be to communicate online, the method selected for data collection needs to align with the research purpose and methodology. Second, we need to make sure all ethical considerations have been met. Third, when we are thinking about using technology, we need to be sure we select an approach that is workable with the target sample population.

Let's with the basics and define our terms: what do I mean by online interviews in real time ? My definition is: "Scholarly interviews conducted via rich media synchronous Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)."

While Rich Media Theory (Daft & Lengel, 1986) taken as a whole has its flaws, the basic concept is useful here: rich media can be used to describe ICTs that allow us to use multiple channels for communication and immediate feedback to create sense of presence Shin (2002), drawing on work of Lombard and Ditton (1997), points out:

Presence, as social richness, involves the degree to which media are capable of making users perceive other users’ sociability, warmth, sensitivity, personality, or closeness in a mediated communication situation. (p. 124)

In Chapter 1, I observe that while face-to-face presence is an either-or proposition, you are there or you are not, when we are online we perceive presence in different ways, including the following:

• Environmental presence: the extent to which the environment itself recognizes and reacts to the person;
• Personal presence : the extent to which the person feels physically present in the environment;
• Social presence : the extent to which the person has the feeling of being together and communicating with others to achieve meaningful interactions, establish and maintain relations, and create productive social systems in online environments; and
• Cognitive presence: the extent to which the person feels the potential to participate in critical thinking and community of inquiry (Baños et al., 2008; Garrison, Anderson, 2004; Heeter, 2003; Kehrwald, 2008; Suler, 2003).

Speaking personally, I feel a sense of social and cognitive presence in an asyncrhonous environment such as the one we are in here. But for an interview, the immediate feedback possible with synchronous communications is in a word richer. I am a very visual person so feel more personal presence when it is possible to view the other person(s) and/or to view relevant visual materials.

What is your definition or how would you refine or add to mine? What other factors or features add to richness is online communication? What helps you feel a sense of presence online? What helps create a sense of presence that might be helpful when in an interviewee? Do you think the selection of technology makes a difference?

Anderson, T., & Elloumi, F. (2004). Theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca: Athabasca University.
Baños, R. M., Botella, C., Isabel Rubió, Quero, S., García-Palacios, A., & Alcañiz, M. (2008). Presence and emotions in virtual environments: The influence of stereoscopy. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(1), 1-8.
Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554-571.
Heeter, C. (2003). Reflections on real presence by a virtual person. Presence: Teleoperators & virtual environments, 12(4), 335-345.
Kehrwald, B. (2008). Understanding social presence in text-based online learning environments. Distance Education, 29(1), 89-106.
Lombard, M., & Ditton, T. (1997). At the heart of it all: the concept of presence. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3(2).
Shin, N. (2002). Beyond interaction: the relational construct of "Transactional Presence". Open Learning, 17(2).
Suler, J. (2003). Presence in cyberspace. Psychology of cyberspace. Retrieved from http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html

Use this thread to share links/references to your own books, articles, blogs, websites or projects that relate to online research.