Catherine Etmanski (catherine.etmanski@royalroads.ca) is a Professor in the School of Leadership Studies, Niels Agger-Gupta (niels.agger-gupta@royalroads.ca) is an Associate Professor in the School of Leadership Studies, Richard Kool (rick.kool@royalroads.ca) is a Professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability, and Jaigris Hodson (jaigris.hodson@royalroads.ca) is an Associate Professor in the College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Royal Roads University, Victoria BC Canada.

Rationale

Given the risks of COVID-19 transmission, researchers were required to postpone or modify any in-person data collection. However, online data collection using digital methods is now a common practice. As these methods become more commonly used, digital researchers need to be aware of the rapidly changing nature of the field and the critical ethical issues the use of digital methods pose to researchers and participants.

This resource was originally compiled to support students in the School of Leadership Studies (SLS) and is now being shared more broadly to support and enhance the use of digital research methods during pandemic times and beyond.

Overview

Just as online learning is not a simple translation of a face-to-face classroom to an online classroom, online research using digital methods is likewise not a simple switch. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of key considerations for research using digital methods. However, since digital tools are constantly changing, researchers likewise need to stay alert and attentive to new considerations in this rapidly shifting field.

Some considerations for digital methods

1. How might the online environment change the nature of the communication with participants?

• • Online interviews are easier to record but give you less data about non-verbal cues, and turn-taking during conversation is less natural;
  • Email interviews allow participants to think more deeply about their answers but may also take more focused effort on the part of participants.

2. What unintended impacts might a digital method have on you and/or your participant(s)?

• • Are you or they experiencing screen fatigue?
  • Does it make a difference that you can only see someone from the shoulders up?
  • Who uses or has access to the tools you have selected and who will automatically be excluded?
  • How does internet access, distractions in the location from which people are joining and access to technology like headphones impact your participant(s) or potentially bias your study?
  • How is trust-building impacted by the digital environment and what can you do to account for that?

3. What unintended impacts might a digital method have with respect to online bullying/trolling/harassment?

• • If you or your participants are engaging in any kind of online public discourse, what are you doing to prevent or mitigate possible harassment from bad actors?

4. How are you keeping yourself and your participants safe throughout the research process? How have you mitigated risks associated with privacy and user surveillance?

• • Do the tools/platforms you have selected track and store user data as a means of earning income? (Please note: many do.)
  • If you are asking participants to participate via Zoom, and do not take precautions to password protect your meeting, you may be opening up participants to a hacking event.
  • If you are asking participants to share Facebook posts, you may be compromising the privacy of others in their friends list.

5. What are the limitations of data collection imposed on the platform?

• • Some platforms do not want you collecting user data at all for research purposes (e.g., Facebook); others allow you to collect some data, but you may only store it for a certain amount of time (e.g., Twitter). Do you know about platform-specific policies?
  • Does your platform require that you make use of the platform Application Programming Interface (API)? If so, you may need specialized tools or you may need a knowledge of coding.

6. Is your use of a platform safe?

• • At the beginning of the pandemic, several instances of “Zoombombing” (Yuan, 2020) were brought to the public’s attention. This has now been addressed by the waiting room and password features in Zoom. Have you taken steps to prevent other kinds of hacking? A basic safety measure is not posting the URL of your online event in social media.

7. How can you make the most of the digital platform you have chosen to use?

• • Since digital interviews offer different opportunities than in-person interviews (e.g., the use of chat and/or screen sharing) are there ways you can make use of this new functionality in service of your research question?

8. How can online methods be presented in the most accessible way for those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have visual impairments?

• • Accessibility and universal design (National Disability Authority, 2020) features are slowly becoming recognized as important in a world of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

9. Can you conduct your research in another way or supplement with other methods?

• • Can you use a phone or email or document analysis?
  • Sometimes it’s easier and more straightforward to work with non-digital technologies or with asynchronous digital technologies like email.

Suggestions

Survey tools

There is a range of on-line survey tools such as Survey Monkey, Zoomerang, SurveyGizmo, JitsuTech. You will need to check where data is stored for the tool you select and include a line to this effect in your research ethics consent form; for example, if the data is housed in the United States, you should add “This online survey will be hosted on the [name of tool] and data is stored in the USA. Data stored on servers in the USA may be subject to examination by the US government under the USA Patriot Act. While this likelihood is small, I am required to let you know this possible risk.” Individual researchers should double check to ensure they are following any relevant organizational, provincial, national, or other legislation related to freedom of information and privacy protection for data stored on servers outside of Canada.

Group methods

Interviews and some group methods can be conducted through telephone, BlueJeans, Go To Meeting, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect, Blackboard Collaborate, Zoom, Skype or some other online video- or tele-conference technology that both you and the participants can mutually access. Recordings can be made of the calls that can be transcribed by the software itself, by the researcher, or by a professional service. Recordio Pro (www.Recordiopro.com) is a service that can be used to make a telephone recording. Transcription of audio files is available through www.transcriptheroes.ca or simultaneous machine transcription is available through http://www.otter.ai. Again, check where data is stored and include a line to this effect in your consent form if the data is stored in the United States: “This online [method] will be hosted on the [name of tool] and data is stored in the USA. Data stored on servers in the USA may be subject to examination by the US government under the USA Patriot Act. While this likelihood is small, I am required to let you know this possible risk.”

Group tools

Online group inquiry activities, such as World Café Method, or 1-2-4-ALL Liberating Structures, have been successfully done using video conferencing technologies that allow for break-out rooms (check the platform you’re using to see how many people can join the conference at the same time and whether it allows for break out rooms). Participants can, of course, add comments in the chat, but this flips by very quickly. However, at the end of the session the chat can be selected, in whole or in part, and copied and then pasted into a Word document as data.

There is an excellent set of guidelines for how a virtual world cafe may be run on the World Café Community blog (2020). A virtual whiteboard, such as Google Docs, may be used as a virtual tablecloth simultaneously to the online video conference, allowing participants to take notes or jot down ideas while they are in their breakout rooms. The Google Doc needs to be prepared in advance as a template with the questions of the rounds and spaces to write in for as many small groups as you have break-out rooms. The URL for the Google Doc is then shared with participants via email ahead of the event (or in the chat during the event) and run simultaneously to the Zoom room. The person tracking the conversation would first find an empty group spot, and in their first note, identify the first names of the individuals in their small group so they can all participate in the same place in the Google Doc.

Ethical considerations

The essential Tri-Council ethical principles of respect for persons and concern for welfare and justice continue to apply to inquiry in an online context (Government of Canada, 2018, Chapter 1, Core Principles). The ease of recording the call on many platforms means video can be captured in addition to audio. This brings advantages for the researcher but raises ethical concerns for the usual anonymity accorded participants in academic inquiry. Although it is certainly possible to only keep the audio track to preserve anonymity of participants, participants may be advised not to turn on their camera if they wish to remain fully anonymous. Participants may also need to give additional consent if the researcher intends to create a video for further distribution.

Institutional Research Ethics reviews should be designed or modified to account for the potential of digital research and engagement methods to be used as an alternate strategy to the in-person methods researchers might have initially designed. For specific guidance on the ethics of digital research please see the Association of Internet Researchers’ (2022) Internet Research Ethical Guidelines.

For online group methods, the information letter/informed consent is sent to participants as an email attachment when they first indicate they are interested in participating in the event. Participants need to return the consent document to you (or your third party) before the link for the event is sent to them. This way, you are not trying to complete the informed consent process during the event.

An anonymous online survey does not normally have an informed consent document to be sent back to the person conducting the research. Instead, the letter of invitation, which may be in the form of an email, may attach information about all the ethical considerations for participation in the anonymous survey. This attachment would also include the link for the actual online survey. The first ‘landing’ page at the link for the survey would then contain a preamble, containing the key statements of the information letter, and include a statement at the bottom, along the lines of: “I have read this preamble and/or the information letter for this inquiry, and, by pressing the link below, give my informed consent to participate in this online anonymous survey.” Immediately below this would be the link to the separate web page where the survey questions start. This is considered an implied informed consent.

Universal Design (National Disability Authority, 2020) features include adding captioning to graphics, creating a transcript of the video session, or a text-only version of the presentation, providing a safe space for students to share their disability needs, educating students about ableist language, and becoming an advocate for greater inclusion of all students in the classroom (Craven, 2020; National Association of the Deaf, 2022).

Reflections

The level of meaningful engagement when using digital research methods during the COVID-19 pandemic has surprised many students and faculty alike. Online research can offer new challenges and considerations that impact the way we conduct our research; however, it also offers new opportunities for innovative methods and connections with people who would otherwise be inaccessible to us. To take advantage of the opportunities while minimizing the challenges, we must keep learning as we go and always be aware of potential challenges. Digital technologies change frequently, and researchers must adapt. For this reason, the authors of this chapter recommend approaching digital methods for applied inquiry as lifelong learners. Rely on resources such as The Association of Internet Researchers (2022), The World Café (2022) community forum, the SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods (Sloan & Quan-Haase, 2016), The Media Manipulation Casebook (Harvard Kennedy School & Technology and Social Change Project, n.d.), Richard Rogers’ book Doing Digital Methods (2021) and Zoe Glatt’s (2020) digital ethnography reading list. These are just a few of the many great digital research methods resources available, and it is imperative that researchers stay on top of the digital trends that impact their own areas of research expertise. It is true that digital research is qualitatively different from similar research conducted without the aid of digital tools. This does not preclude rich knowledge sharing and a relational, high-quality experience. The pandemic and climate emergency are existential crises that are reshaping how some people view the world and their/our place in it. If digital methods can support a shift to more sustainable research practice where needed (Grogan et al., 2021)—while continuing to be vigilant about issues of equity, justice, access, safety, and privacy—then our work will have been of service.

References

Association of Internet Researchers. (2022). Internet Research Ethical Guidelines. https://aoir.org/ethics/

Craven, C.L. (2020) How Educators Can Support Accessibility. Medium. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-educators-can-support-accessibility-52d8bfb58f88

Glatt, Z. (2020). LSE Digital ethnography collective reading list. https://zoeglatt.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/LSE-Digital-Ethnography-Collective-Reading-List-March-2020.pdf

Government of Canada, Panel on Research Ethics. (2018). Tri-council policy statement: Ethical conduct for research involving humans – TCPS 2. https://ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique_tcps2-eptc2_2018.html

Grogan, P., Buckeridge, K. M., & Priemé, A. (2021). Declare how you are limiting your environmental impact. Nature 596, 35. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02130-4

Harvard Kennedy School & Technology and Social Change Project. (n.d.). The media manipulation casebook. https://mediamanipulation.org/methods

Rogers, R. (2021). Doing Digital Methods. SAGE.. http://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/doing-digital-methods/book261134

National Association of the Deaf. (2022). Technology. https://www.nad.org/resources/technology/

National Disability Authority. (2020). What is universal design? The 7 principles. https://universaldesign.ie/What-is-Universal-Design/The-7-Principles/

Sloan, L., & Quan-Haase, A. (2016). The SAGE handbook of social media research methods. SAGE. https://methods.sagepub.com/Book/the-sage-handbook-of-social-media-research-methods

The World Café (2022). World cafe method. http://www.theworldcafe.com/key-concepts-resources/world-cafe-method/

The World Café Community Blog. (2020, January 15). Guidelines for conversations that matter. [blog]. http://www.theworldcafe.com/guidelines-for-conversations-that-matter/

Yuan, E. S. (2020). Zoom. A message to our users. [blog post]. https://blog.zoom.us/a-message-to-our-users/