Hello Kathy,


Many thanks for your questions on the research - in terms of the observation, I thought I would come along to this first meeting on the 1st May and see how things go, whether people are generally comfortable with me being there and so on. If people are happy for me to do so, then I'd be interested in potentially speaking to some more people individually, or asking permission to join in on/observe other meetings etc. if that were possible (with the consent and agreement of any participants). Overall, I'm hoping for the fieldwork for this project to last until around the start of summer 2018, but in terms of how much observation would be involved, that is entirely dependent on how comfortable people are with me carrying out the research and what fits best with the community. 


In terms of new people coming to the project, I think that this is definitely something important for me to take into account - I'd be very keen to make it clear each time that I'm participating in an observational capacity, provide links to verify who I am and what my research is about, and make it clear that if anyone wasn't comfortable with me being there or didn't consent to participating then they could let me know and I would end the observation immediately. I'd be really interested to hear any thoughts or comments which you had on these issues  - do you think that this would be sufficient, or is there anything else you think I should take into account?


Very best,


Ben

From: tor-project <tor-project-bounces@lists.torproject.org> on behalf of Kathleen Brade <brade@pearlcrescent.com>
Sent: 20 April 2017 14:36:23
To: tor-project@lists.torproject.org
Subject: Re: [tor-project] Fwd: Tor Research - Re: Weekly UX meeting on Jitsi!
 
On 4/18/17 8:15 AM, COLLIER Ben wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
> Many thanks for forwarding this on - very much appreciated! If anyone
> has any thoughts or concerns about my potentially carrying out this kind
> of research I'd be really grateful to hear them. As Linda points out in
> their email, it wouldn't be right for me to carry out this kind of
> observational research without talking to people about it first and
> getting informed consent. While some types of research do try to observe
> participants without their knowledge, as a sociologist I'm not
> comfortable doing this and I don't think it would be an ethical way
> to go about things. I think that mindfully, respectfully carrying out
> this kind of research with the consent and knowledge of the participants
> isn't only ethical best practice, but ultimately also gives you a
> much more interesting perspective (and hopefully might mean that the
> research could be of more use to the participants when it's finished).
> As before, I'm happy to answer any questions at all about the research
> or the current stage of the project, or discuss what might be the best
> way to go about something like this.
>
>
> Very best,
>
>
> Ben

A couple of questions:
1) How long will this observation last? (3 months? 3 years?)
2) How will you inform new members to the community (e.g., a new
volunteer joins the community in June; how will they be "notified")?

-- Kathy Brade

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