1. AUTEC Faculty Representative for Design and Creative Technologies Dr Robert Wellington WT 116 robert.wellington@aut.ac.nz

2. The New Zealand Context Shift of power in legislation from the Researcher to the Researched The National Women’s Hospital scandal and the effect on the public’s perception of researchers

3. The BIG Question How do we decide what is ethical in a society in which there are competing systems of values?

4. NZ’s Basic Values PartnershipProtectionParticipation Given in the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi as discerned by the Courts and the Waitangi Tribunal

5. The first problem In a virtual community, where is the research? Under what moral framework or consitution do we design the study?

6. Partnership and AUTEC’s Principles Research adequacy Informed and voluntary consent Truthfulness and the limitation of deception Social and cultural sensitivity –And commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Avoidance of conflict of interest

7. Partnership Informed and Voluntary consent –Information dissemination over electronic (graphical) environments is platform dependent and cannot be guaranteed –Representations of selection criteria are self disclosed and generally not verifiable Cannot guarantee that subjects have capacity to agree to undertake the research Cannot guarantee that a conflict of interest exists in the acceptance of subjects (could be your own students, and you find out later)

8. Much harder to engage with relevant groups (the consituency for the research) in the design of the study May be harder to disseminate the findings to the participants Harder to ensure that deception doesn’t occur (as the equivocality of the media increases, the message may be misconstrued) Truthfullness in representing the research may also be in question in a virtual world, where avatars, modelled realities, icons, emoticons, etc. are standard communication mechanisms

9. Cultural and social sensitivity is much more difficult to create boundaries for –What groups do the potential participants belong to? –How can you consult with these distributed (global) groups to make the research more socially / culturally sensitive?

10. Protection and AUTEC’s Principles Respect for rights of privacy and confidentiality Minimisation of risk Truthfulness and the limitation of deception Avoidance of conflict of interest Respect for the vulnerability of some participants

11. Protection Documentation of participation will not conform to standard procedure –Consent forms, signitures etc. You need more procedures to cope with the variety of outcomes that a more complicated consent process might evoke –Minimisation of Risk is therefore more problematic Counselling services for provocative topics will not be available in the same form, provision of online forms may not be acceptable

12. Harder to ensure protection of members of vulnerable groups –Consider research of AUT teaching through AUTonline, it requires careful procedures Harder to ensure seperation of participants and other members of the class Harder to procedularise the opt out process Self disclosure and consent in anonymous settings may lead to ‘unsuitable’ participants being involved

13. Participation and AUTEC’s Principles Informed and voluntary consent Research adequacy Truthfulness and the limitation of deception Respect for property –Including University property –And intellectual property rights

14. Participation Using online forums as a proxy for a social or cultural group would most probably not be satisfactory – inappropriate exclusion Already, some debate about representations within samples of web surveys (Consider classic Gallup Pole error of 1948 USA election) Growing apathy toward online surveys, response rates plummeting (and telephone surveys as well)

15. Research Adequacy is prone to more threats –Threats of accuracy of description of phenomena (what do you see?), therefore questions of empiricism –Threats of data collection How could you perform an ethnographic interview –How would you measure force of effect of text and avatars? –How natural is the dialogue through the mediating technology?

16. Thank you Do you have any questions?