Each university will have its own interpretation of research ethics when it comes to online interviews. To improve your ability to succeed with your Institutional Review Board approval, here are a few tips:
- How will you use the webcam? Clearly define how you plan to use visual data. You can see the person-- how will you use those observations? Are you interested in non-verbal signals and affective responses? You could choose, for example, to review the recorded interview and use a notation system to record types of non-verbal expressions that are conveyed throughout the interview.
Or, you could be looking for other visual information about the setting, what you can see in the interview. (Perhaps you are studying home office workers and work-life balance, and your participants use the webcam to show you around....)
If you are choosing Skype to do research that includes visual data, you need to explain it in your research design and in your recruitment/consent documents. If you are simply planning to focus on audio, or even audio with notes in text chat, then you will need to explain how you will bracket your own impressions of the participant in the video window-- or simply use voice only, essentially like a phone interview.
- Does your target population have access to Skype? In the opening webinar I spoke about the difference between using online interviews to research online phenomena or "real world" phenomena. If you are studying something Internet-related you can assume that the participants have online access etc. If you are studying something else, you need to be sure you are not skewing the sample by choosing online interviews. I'd suggest, in that case, describing your target sample (i.e. high school social studies teachers in rural areas, small-business retailers) then look for information about online access and usage for that group to support your rationale for using Skype for the interview.
If you want everyone to use a webcam, you'll want to include that in your inclusion criteria for participation.
Hope these points help. FYI, Online Interviews in Real Time contains an entire chapter on research ethics, and "Ethics Tips" are included in all the chapters.
Best,
Janet