Check out Elizabeth Buchanan on the BITrum Agora blog (a discussion arena of the Science of Information Institute), in an interview conducted by IRE project assitant Anthony Hoffmann.

In the casual interview, Elizabeth briefly discusses her past experiences with Internet research ethics, as well as what makes IRE distinct from research ethics in general and what she sees as the most pressing issues in IRE today.

IRE Commons Director Elizabeth Buchanan and Team Member Michael Zimmer will present to the Secretary's Advisory Committee to the Office of Human Research Protections (SACHRP) on July 21, 2010. Elizabeth and Michael will join Montana Miller, Bowling Green University and John Palfrey, Harvard University, to discuss Internet research ethics and federal policy. More on SACHRP can be found here!

IRE Project Assistant and UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies PhD student Anthony Hoffmann has posted a four part analysis of the recent Twitter-Library of Congress deal at his blog Sex, Drugs, and Intellectual Freedom.

In parts one through three, he addresses issues as far ranging as privacy/user rights, digital divides and the the cultural record, as well as intercultural information ethics and digital classification.

In part four, he turns his attention to Internet research ethics, and (building on the previous three posts), poses a handful of questions for researchers in light of the deal:

• How do we conduct meaningful research in the archive and still respect the rights and privacy of individual Twitterers who did not necessarily consent to being researched?
• How do we make sense of this data in a way that is meaningful anywhere outside the context of Twitter itself?
• How will we handle the issue of intercultural information ethics and representation when we conduct research on this archive?

Check out the entire series for more detail.

IRE project member Michael Zimmer has started a conversation at his blog on the question "Is it Ethical to Harvest Public Twitter Accounts without Consent?":

While participating in the workshop on Revisiting Research Ethics in the Facebook Era: Challenges in Emerging CSCW Research, the question arose as to whether it was ethical for researchers to follow and systematically capture public Twitter streams without first obtaining specific, informed consent by the subjects. Many in the room felt that consent was not necessary since the tweets are public, a conscious choice made by the user to allow the whole world see her activity. In short, by not restricting access to one's account, there is no expectation of privacy.

 

I argued, however, that we cannot be so quick to presume the expectations of potential research subjects. Yes, setting one's Twitter stream to public does mean that anyone can search for you, follow you, and view your activity. However, there is a reasonable expectation that one's tweet stream will be "practically obscure" within the thousands (if not millions) of tweets similarly publicly viewable. Yes, the subject has consented to making her tweets visible to those who take the time and energy to seek her out, those who have a genuine interest to connect and view her activity through this social network.

But she did not automatically consent, I argue, to having her tweet stream systematically followed, harvested, archived, and mined by researchers (no matter the positive intent of such research). That is not what is expected when making a Twitter account public, and it is my opinion that researchers should seek consent prior to capturing and using this data.

There is an extensive debate on Zimmer's blog, centering on whether public tweets are public communications, not requiring any additional consent or IRB review, or whether Twitter-based research is dealing with "human subjects" that does require strict scrutiny, and whether making one's tweets public is de facto allowing them to be used for any purpose.

There are quite a number of comments on his blog -- what do IRE readers think?

[image from TPorter2006]

IRE project member Michael Zimmer is participating in a workshop on Revisiting Research Ethics in the Facebook Era: Challenges in Emerging CSCW Research at CSCW 2010. He is presenting submitted a brief analysis of his ethical critique of the “Tastes, Ties, and Time” Facebook dataset release: Subject Privacy and the Release of the “Tastes, Ties, and Time” Dataset.

Zimmer will also be leading a discussion on on the ethical issues related to archiving and releasing research data. His slides to guide the discussion are available here.