Today I received an apparently bulk email from a researcher who had identified my blog as being "work focused" and he wanted me to participate in his study. Of course this incident has me thinking about how such his request is structured and how I would personally structure a similar type of request. I should mention off the top that the researcher who emailed me was from the U.K. and that our Human Subjects requirement differ.

• His email is very short. It gives me no idea specifically what his research is about - it just have two links, one to a survey and one to his blog. I do like the U.S. concept of a information sheet that will tell the participant what the researcher is studying in more specific terms, and includes statements about privacy. I find it interesting that this researcher didn't provide this type of information since it has been my understanding that U.K. & E.U. policies on privacy are far more restrictive then U.S. ones. Such local policies rule the researchers work irregardless of where the subjects may be located.
• The email does give me some latitude on how I identify my blog. He is looking for work related blogs and does not define the terms nor are they limited as his email states that "work" is very broad. Well interestingly enough, and I know it is open to argument, I don't define this as a work blog. Work blogs are more procedural in my definition, what I strive for in professional-lurker is more idea driven with some personal stuff for spice. And yes there is often a fair amount of "what I did today" but it too is idea driven in some form, though I have to admit that form is often loosely defined. I think of professional-lurker as an academic & research blog so while it may be about my work it is not, in my mind at least, a work blog. I have a feeling I will be debating this issue with myself for awhile. It will be interesting to see if I still hold this belief after I finish writing about enterprise blogs.
• In light of the previous statement, it is interesting that while I can decide to participate in his survey, based on my personal definition of my blog, he has already decided to add my "work related" blog to his link list of over 300 work-related blogs. So I guess he has decided I run a work-blog no matter what my personal definition may be. I have no doubt that he means well, but by linking to my blog prior to sending me a survey request and letting me know that he has already done so in that request is a form of pressure on me to participate in the survey. It's much like the pressure kids in chat would apply to each other "I like you, don't you like me too?" This is also the same reason that my IRB won't let instructors hand out research survey forms to their students themselves (from their hands directly into the students hands)...pressure to participate.
• One very interesting part is that he is clearly using snowball data acquisition. He may be stripping sites for link lists, that is clearly invisible to me as a "participant", but on top of that the survey questions specifically ask which blogs I read while another asks which bloggers I know and how I stay in contact with them. Doing a little explicit network analysis hummm?

So how would I do this? First I think I would email potential participants with links to my academic website and to a research information sheet on a university website, yes I know not all researchers have the luxury of IT resources to which I have access and they can't build their ties to the university quite so explicitly. I know I would provide some definition of the terms just so I can make sure that I am comparing apples to apples. Saying "work" is just to loose, students work and school is their job but are their blogs "work blogs"? Which reminds me that the email I received had no age cut-offs, another point to ponder since asking adolescent question and asking to interview them can be problematic in both nations.

Second I would keep my personal blog link list and my research requests far far apart. I have added blogs to my list because they were found though data analysis but I have never told the subjects that I have done so. I think that if I have mentioned that part of it on the blog it was done so after the research itself was completed. Though I expect I have not specifically mentioned any blogs I found through research data analysis.

Lastly I would structure my survey so that it was focused on my stated research topic. While it is difficult to tell exactly what the researcher is doing with his network analysis, it does appear that there may be some extraneous information being gathered. Along with that would be my requirement for more than passive consent to participate in the survey. Especially when I am requesting information about third-parties and personal information. I find a discussion of who I communicate with and how that communication is done to be pretty personal, far more personal then say why I began my blog which has been answered publicly in the blog itself. And also in my blog I have stated that I keep third-party information private, except where the name of the person is publicly linked to the statements being made...such as when I blog a conference presentation or discuss an article I have read.

I rarely say no to requests for my participation in research projects...well most of those phone call things don't count cause they aren't legitimate research they just want to sell you something at the end. I truly believe that if I want others to participate in my research then I must also participate in general. That is me putting pressure on me. But this one I am passing on because of my concerns about the structure of the research as it was presented.

There are many ethical issues embedded in this case. Honesty, transparency, and privacy immediately come to the front. I'm curious how would you conduct a web-based survey?

Posted by prolurkr at June 9, 2005 10:16 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.professional-lurker.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/684

Comments