Can I borrow your online conversation? | Ethics online

Is it ok to walk into someone’s garden and take a photo? How about take a plant? What about walking up to their front door, standing in their porch and listen to the conversation through the keyhole? Would it be ok if you were listening to a conversation standing on the pavement?

Where does the ‘privacy’ begin and the ‘public’ end?

I’ve been exploring the ethical implications of researching in a community space online – and the waters are pretty murky. My thesis will be exploring a social network, one in which I am already a member, an active participant. So already, I have more than one role, access to a range of other people’s information and have different relationships with people who are there for learning (not for the pleasure of my research;-).

But there is no denying that social sciences research in online spaces presents some interesting issues, simply due to

• the greater accessibility to data,
• looser management of privacy and confidentiality,
• difficulties with identity and informed consent,
• multiple cultures across global settings, and
• the range of ‘venues‘ that present different challenges (Ess, 2004).

I like the idea that online research is essentially participatory – focused on doing good for a community, a collaborative act (Denzin, 2004), and I strongly believe that a community (online or otherwise) has a set of values and culture that existed long before the research begins, and therefore must be acknowledged and assimilated into the research.

There are clear overlaps with feminist research and critical theory (Cohen et al, 2007). In other words, if I am going to research in an online space, I should be all about goodwill, democratic rights with a clear sense of producing something that will somehow point towards a way to improve or enhance what is already there, working alongside participants.

The ethical issues, then, are beginning to emerge clearly for me:

• tension between the power relationships inherent in my roles of researcher, paid facilitator and community member
• notions of public vs private? – Posts made by others in a public forum for a specific purpose are not ‘fair game’, nor were they intended for a research purposes.
• The way that others’ posts might be analysed and interpreted – the importance of the context.
• Copyright and fair use issues
• Informed consent

I’ve now submitted my ethics application, so fingers crossed.

[Image source:  Some rights reserved by DCRC-UWE]

Social media: Digital dialogue with DK

Yes, he’s a mate and a colleague….and so, having declared my interest, I’ll say, without feeling at all ‘promotional’ that the CORE breakfast session this Friday morning with DK on social media was spot on. Here’s why:

• Social media was foregrounded in the bigger picture, the context of the development of the web, all the way from the O’Reilly’s brain through the ‘happy ugly’ of MySpace (great video from Ze Frank) to the exciting possibilities of today’s social web for both learners and teachers.
• Great images: always more powerful to use a visual metaphor than a bunch of bullets.
• Big, fat philosophy. Open, sharing, enthusiastic advocacy for the power of the collective. Social media as digital dialogue that can be efficiently managed so we can choose to hear our favourite signals amidst the noise.
• Humour. Laughs. Wry self-deprecation.
• Great collection of tweets all the way through…

More, please.

Rethinking education: New video from Mike Wesch

I’m a bit of a fan of Professor Wesch. I like the way he captures some of the big picture ideas that sit at the point where technology and anthropology meet.

In his most recent video (a conversation starter produced for an EDUCAUSE book, The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing, edited by Richard Katz), he explores the way peer collaboration and knowledge creation in our web 2.0 world pose serious implications for the way we regard knowledge and publications at university. And in school.

Interesting comments about the way links work instead of a hierarchy online, that there is no ‘top’ to the web, and that we need a more open approach to the concept of knowledge because we live in a sphere that is far wider and more open than before.

A teacher who encourages students to develop opinions on a wiki, or review and critique a blog post on a news item, for example, will know this already…that it is better to be open and prepare students to become discerning digital citizens of what’s out there online than deny them the opportunities that web 2.0 presents.

And if you haven’t seen Wesch’s other video think pieces, check out his YouTube channel.

Thanks to dangerously irrelevant and Free Technology for Teachers for the link:-)

Wave goodbye…

We were big adopters of Google Wave at work, even in its BETA version.

We thrilled at the excitement of synchronised editing from different places in the country. We were intrigued by the action replay of what we had composed. We found it a great way to live blog from conferences, creating back channels that exceeded 140 characters. Version control and the multiple ‘FW’ email was a thing of the past. We liked ‘getting stuff done with people’ (snappy, Google, snappy).

I liked being part of a new technology. And I liked that fact that my work liked that, too. I even liked the excitement of finally being invited when I had waited so long for an invite.  Ah, happy days….

But, it’s goodbye to the Wave [BBC news story]. And, despite all the promise of mutual editing sessions and parachuting into discussions, a bit of me isn’t too sorry to see Wave slosh off into the horizon.

I won’t miss the lack of export function from Word – because your writing can’t stay surfing the wave forever.

I won’t miss importing text and watching my formatting turn to spaghetti. Sigh.

I won’t miss the trickiness of inviting people, even after they opened up the Wave to just anyone;-) Not everyone wants to be on gMail, y’know.

And how often do you need to write at exactly the same time as someone else? Not as often as we thought, is the answer.

Back to the wiki, I guess, where at least anyone can find it, anyone can write in it, I can copy and paste tidily – and I can make letters spin if I want to.

3 reasons why online privacy is the best gift you can give your children

I was recently asked to complete a survey about children (say, under 13) and blogs: are they are good idea (blogs, not the children)? Is there a benefit in children blogging, what are the issues and so on. I have also had a conversation this week about people posting photos of their children online behind limited or no privacy settings.

Is this post a hysterical reaction – or common sense? Here are three good reasons why you should think twice before sharing your children with the world:

1. Our children have not chosen to be online

This one is pretty obvious. Little humans they may be (and gosh, they can be annoying at times), but they still have rights. Even schools have to cover themselves, with various permission forms, before they post images of students online. Should parents consider similar issues?  Even if our children enjoy seeing themselves online, they have no idea of the ramifications of the internet and cannot know what it means to see themselves on the web.

2. We cannot control the information we post up

Yes, we can choose our settings and our controls. We can tick the boxes and run checks. But once the photo is in the cloud, it’s there, somewhere in the ether, forever. How large a digital footprint do we want to create for our children without their say so?

3. It is scarily easy to track people down via information on the web

Is it too much to suggest that an identified child on the net is the same as a child wearing a t-shirt bearing their name, address etc, wandering around in a big city? We do not know who sees our images or our children’s images, who stores our information, or how easily we can be found. So, yes, you wouldn’t want your child to have their name, address, location or school linked to their image even if you have decided to post their photos up there.

Yet, here’s the rub.

We live in an online world, and we share our lives with our loved ones via the web as naturally as we used to send them copies of the school photos in the mail. We are a highly mobile lot, who rarely live close to our folks anymore. What about Grandma in the UK who never sees her grandchildren? Or the ante-natal group of mums who bond online, sharing news, views and shots of their bubs doing mad stuff, to keep themselves sane?

I  would be recommending the obvious: if images of your children must be posted online, ensure you have the tightest security settings you can, don’t refer to them by name and give all that personal information a second thought.

Let your children define their own digital shadow when they are old enough. Then at least, when we are lecturing – sorry, supporting –  them about cybersafety, we can say we tried to set an example back in the day…;-)

[Image source: WoodcraftPlans.com]