Challenges in Gaining Ethical Approval for Sensitive Digital Social Science Studies
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| Title: | Challenges in Gaining Ethical Approval for Sensitive Digital Social Science Studies |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Charlie Winter (ORCID |
| Source: | International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 2024 27(1):31-46. |
| Availability: | Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 16 |
| Publication Date: | 2024 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Descriptors: | Ethics, Program Validation, Social Sciences, Digital Literacy, Telecommunications, Experimenter Characteristics, Confidentiality, Standards, Criminology, Research Methodology, Social Science Research, Researchers, Publications |
| DOI: | 10.1080/13645579.2022.2122226 |
| ISSN: | 1364-5579 1464-5300 |
| Abstract: | The swift evolution of digital spaces challenges the established norms of ethical research policy. Ineffective ethical review diminishes researchers' ability to conduct cutting-edge and socially sensitive research, institutions' ability to engage at the forefront of technology, and the relationship between researcher and committee. In criminology and other disciplines that navigate sensitive research, especially when working with ephemeral data in digital field sites, researchers require fast ethical approval turnarounds and ethics committees that can navigate ethical issues that challenge norms of analogue research. Few publications consider the ethical challenges that digital research on topics of criminological interest encounter. This study appraises experiences of ethical review in published studies and draws on a survey of digital criminological researchers who faced rejections and roadblocks from ethical review. We show that, when researchers report a disconnect between their needs and their ethics committees' responses, roadblocks to ethics approval emerge and preclude research, that may be authorized in other comparable research institutions, from proceeding. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2024 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1406679 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwEf-tIQDn1PO_nH7xwR7pTmAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDFj3gm1P5aVrT9A60QIBEICBmwMS99NsN6WQKCU-nb_samN80_cvSx8SbNVeyVWTa00dQcon3JmksF2aIGkgqULv4htYbDpcXVqSuRAiBWDsbVeXA7dISUk0DfQuh5q_v0TFMdk2arvCvQEsHpcY8GgoUM4AnATU3S2v6RZJCCKwQZ1fGzMPNOpZcwsSXJdZGmYbZoZYiaIn67BozmVYsldXWui0SjDQQyCjbnXP Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0174601366;9eb01jan.24;2024Jan08.04:55;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0174601366-1">Challenges in gaining ethical approval for sensitive digital social science studies </title> <p>The swift evolution of digital spaces challenges the established norms of ethical research policy. Ineffective ethical review diminishes researchers' ability to conduct cutting-edge and socially sensitive research, institutions' ability to engage at the forefront of technology, and the relationship between researcher and committee. In criminology and other disciplines that navigate sensitive research, especially when working with ephemeral data in digital field sites, researchers require fast ethical approval turnarounds and ethics committees that can navigate ethical issues that challenge norms of analogue research. Few publications consider the ethical challenges that digital research on topics of criminological interest encounter. This study appraises experiences of ethical review in published studies and draws on a survey of digital criminological researchers who faced rejections and roadblocks from ethical review. We show that, when researchers report a disconnect between their needs and their ethics committees' responses, roadblocks to ethics approval emerge and preclude research, that may be authorized in other comparable research institutions, from proceeding.</p> <p>Keywords: Digital methodology; ethics; criminology; ethics committees; digital research</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-2">Introduction</hd> <p>The rapid evolution of digital spaces – such as the internet, internet-based apps, and digital communications platforms – continues to challenge established norms of ethical research policy and review. The field of digital ethics is burgeoning; scholars, such as Buchanan ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref1">11</reflink>]), Ess ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref2">29</reflink>]), Floridi ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref3">32</reflink>]), Markham ([<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref4">53</reflink>]), and Zimmer ([<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref5">88</reflink>]), along with the Association of Internet Researchers (Franzke et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref6">34</reflink>]; Markham &amp; Buchanan, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref7">54</reflink>]), have addressed ethical challenges associated with digital spaces for over three decades. However, while digital research ethics has a history as long as the internet itself, the scholarship of digital research ethics considerations regarding research that studies socially sensitive and potentially criminal behaviors remains in its infancy.</p> <p>Complaints of delays, a lack of transparency in ethics decision making, cultural lag, and excessive control that result in ineffective ethical review that fails to engage with the projects within their contexts and on their merits (Buchanan et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref8">12</reflink>]; Buchanan &amp; Ess, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref9">13</reflink>]; Clapp et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref10">16</reflink>]; Dahringer, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref11">23</reflink>]; Friesen et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref12">35</reflink>]; Van den Hoonaard, [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref13">79</reflink>]) form the critical literature. Even before the internet and its vast complexity of information, these complaints abounded, particularly for qualitative research (Marzano, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref14">58</reflink>]) and visual research (Hauber-Özer &amp; Call-Cummings, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref15">39</reflink>]). Moreover, many researchers who study socially sensitive digital topics have informally reported the difficulties they have faced in getting their research ethics committees (henceforth ethics committees) to approve their projects, but almost none has published detailed accounts of such challenges (an exception is: Cottee &amp; Cunliffe, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref16">21</reflink>]). If anything, new forms of digital data have compounded past concerns.</p> <p>Certainly, due to differences in institutions (e.g. research institutes, universities, liberal arts colleges, government agencies, etc.) and the ethics committees that support those institutions, ethical concerns vary in their existence and magnitude. Nonetheless, common issues exist across negative or ineffective ethical review experiences; these include a diminishing of researchers' abilities to conduct research and produce quality research outputs, institutions' capacities to support research at the forefront of technology, and the relationships between researchers and ethics committees (McAreavey &amp; Muir, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref17">59</reflink>]; Monaghan et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref18">63</reflink>]). These issues are acute for researchers in digital criminology who venture into online field sites to study culturally sensitive, deviant, or unlawful behaviors, such as fraud (Cross, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref19">22</reflink>]; Taodang &amp; Gundur, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref20">77</reflink>]), online illicit markets (Copeland et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref21">20</reflink>]; Martin et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref22">56</reflink>]; Martin et al. [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref23">57</reflink>]), terrorism (Shehabat et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref24">75</reflink>]), extremist/hate-speech forums (Awan, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref25">5</reflink>]; Cohen-Almagor, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref26">18</reflink>]), digital coercive control (Woodlock et al., [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref27">87</reflink>]), and child sexual exploitation websites (Van der Bruggen &amp; Blokland, [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref28">80</reflink>]; Westlake et al., [<reflink idref="bib84" id="ref29">84</reflink>]).</p> <p>Moreover, the ephemeral nature of some digital field sites, or the data within them, requires researchers to receive ethical approval quickly for a project to be viable (Rogers, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref30">70</reflink>]). Thus, ethics committees – known under various titles, including, <emph>inter alia</emph>, Institutional Review Board (IRB) in the US; Research Ethics Board (REB) in Canada; and Research Ethics Committee (REC) in the UK and Australia – must provide fast turnarounds and must possess an understanding of complex, rapidly changing ethical issues that challenge the norms of analogue research if such research is to flourish.</p> <p>This article contributes to a modest literature that examines the challenges researchers face in receiving ethical approval for digital research on criminological topics (Brewer et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref31">8</reflink>]; R. Jones, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref32">41</reflink>]; Lavorgna &amp; Sugiura, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref33">49</reflink>]; Lehner-Mear, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref34">50</reflink>]; Walther, [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref35">82</reflink>]; Whiteman, [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref36">86</reflink>]). Specifically, it examines why ethics committees may reject or significantly alter digital research that focuses on sensitive, criminological topics. It does so by assessing accounts of the ethical approval process in the literature and by surveying criminological researchers who have experienced issues with ethical review. This article argues that ethics committees, when ill equipped to attend to emerging technologies and methodologies, stunt cutting-edge digital research and knowledge production. This article further argues that pinpointing critical intersections of ethical review and digital methodologies can reduce the disconnect between digital researchers' needs and how their ethics committees respond to research design and inform best practice to support digital methodologies. Understanding the 'invisible,' unrecounted processes of ethics rejection and what constitutes positive ethics experiences can create review processes that ensure that digital research methodologies and data collection remain timely, equitable, accessible, safe, and ethical, while remaining at the forefront of methodological innovation.</p> <p>This article first provides an overview of ethics committees and the evolution of ethics assessment. Second, it considers the role of ethical review vis-à-vis sensitive digital research. Third, it presents this study's methodology. Fourth, it describes the results. And, finally, it discusses why digital criminologists encounter difficulties in the ethical review process and how to ameliorate those problems to develop adequate and pro-research ethical review for sensitive, digital research projects.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-3">Literature review</hd> <p>The mission of ethical review remains as it initially was: to ensure that no one is coerced into participating in or harmed by research; that research is respectful to persons and beneficial to society; and that the benefits of research outweigh its risk and potential harm. Ethical standards protect those involved, including participants, institutions, and researchers; institutional ethical review ensures that proposed research meets these standards before being conducted (White, [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref37">85</reflink>]).</p> <p>Contemporary ethical review systems for human research are derived from biomedical frameworks established in the early to mid-20<sups>th</sups> century (Buchanan &amp; Ess, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref38">13</reflink>]). The direct application of these traditional medical ethics models to non-medical fields, particularly digital research, is hotly contested. Some authors describe this 'mission creep' as an inappropriate application of bioethical standards, unfit for contexts with differences in required standards, methodologies, and enquiry (Anabo et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref39">2</reflink>]; Buchanan, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref40">10</reflink>]; Gunsalus et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref41">38</reflink>]; Markham, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref42">52</reflink>]; Metcalf &amp; Crawford, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref43">61</reflink>]; Schrag, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref44">71</reflink>]). Others recommend the removal or reduction of ethical review to digital research (Dingwall, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref45">26</reflink>]; A. Jones, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref46">42</reflink>]), arguing that ethical review penalizes innovation, enforces standardization, and fails to provide the flexibility that social scientific inquiry requires (Markham, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref47">51</reflink>]; Schrag, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref48">71</reflink>]; Warfield et al., [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref49">83</reflink>]). Certainly, despite these critiques, ethics committees vary considerably not only between institutions but also, over time, within institutions (Van den Hoonaard, [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref50">79</reflink>]).</p> <p>Applying traditional ethics frameworks, which were designed to consider analogue, offline research, to digital research accelerates extant issues between ethics committees and researchers, given the dramatic increases in scalability, speed, and access that digital research can leverage (Dahringer, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref51">23</reflink>]; Reamer, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref52">68</reflink>]). Additionally, concerns regarding delays, rigidity, ineffective engagement with new technologies and methodologies, and debates about the definition of 'human research,' dominate discussions of ethical digital research (Buchanan et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref53">12</reflink>]; Buchanan &amp; Ess, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref54">13</reflink>]; Martin &amp; Christin, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref55">55</reflink>]). Despite its applicatory struggles within the social sciences and emerging research fields, traditional, bioethical frameworks have shaped how contemporary ethics committees function across the Anglophone world.</p> <p>Bruckman ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref56">9</reflink>]) identifies three primary entities that can be harmed by research: the research subject; the research environment, which, in turn, harms future research; and the institution through reputational harm or legal consequences. Some have identified a fourth entity: the researchers themselves (Conway, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref57">19</reflink>]; Décary-Hétu &amp; Aldridge, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref58">24</reflink>]; Franzke et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref59">34</reflink>]). The concept of social risk, such as stigma, further compounds the issue and raises questions of how ethics committees perceive and negotiate risk (Klitzman, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref60">45</reflink>]), especially vis-à-vis emerging technologies.</p> <p>Ethics committees are not static entities and how ethics committees view and assess risk varies throughout the academic world and within institutions (Friesen et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref61">35</reflink>]). This variance is due to several factors, including, <emph>inter alia</emph>, the role of the institution (e.g. research institute, government body, or university), the membership and expertise of the panel, the role of precedence in decision making, the novelty of a project, national ethics standards, the frequency of review, and the administrators who run the ethics committee. The variance manifests in many ways (Adler &amp; Adler, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref62">1</reflink>]; Buchanan, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref63">10</reflink>]). While some ethics committees are risk-averse in their judgments (Clark et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref64">17</reflink>]; Seko &amp; Lewis, [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref65">73</reflink>]), others are too lenient or 'under-cautious' (Warfield et al., [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref66">83</reflink>]). Furthermore, how modern ethics committees assess risk exposes them to a wide range of criticisms. Many scholars are concerned that ethics committees, when acting as bureaucratic gatekeepers, 'reduce the ability to conduct transformative research' (Vitak et al., [<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref67">81</reflink>], p. 374). Others note that members are not often representative of the disciplines ethics committees govern and that they lack training in unique regulatory frameworks (Schrag, [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref68">72</reflink>]), such as the emerging guidelines around internet research ethics (Bruckman, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref69">9</reflink>]; Huh-Yoo &amp; Rader, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref70">40</reflink>]). When navigating risk, some researchers view ethics committees as focusing disproportionately on informed consent and as being resistant to change and emerging technologies (Bruckman, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref71">9</reflink>]; Clapp et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref72">16</reflink>]; McCormack et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref73">60</reflink>]).</p> <p>The ever-changing nature of digital data increasingly blurs the lines between physical and digital realms and redefines user interactions within the various online spaces that form the digital realm. From the early to mid-1990s' text-based forums of Web 1.0 to the socially-driven Web 2.0 to the mobile-connected Web 3.0 to the always on and connected Web 4.0, internet users have transitioned from using the internet as a distinct, often anonymous entity, to intertwining it with their real identities (Markham, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref74">53</reflink>]). Platforms, such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Discord, and their contemporaries, have supplied a wealth of new data including tweets,[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref75">1</reflink>] posts, network connections, images, audio, video, interactions, likes, dislikes,[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref76">2</reflink>] phone numbers, and personal histories.</p> <p>Brewer and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref77">8</reflink>]) identify four data types of interest for digital criminological research: media files, online marketplaces, communications data regarding crime commissions, and victimization experiences. The first three of these data types lend themselves to automated collection that risks uncovering or engaging with illicit materials or activities (Brewer et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref78">8</reflink>]; Gundur et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref79">37</reflink>]). Both datasets that form this study contain examples of all four of these types of data, which have been scrutinized to varying degrees by ethics committees.</p> <p>Importantly, the longevity of digital data varies greatly based on the data's form, the methodology used to collect it, and the ease of accessing it. This uncertain nature of digital data means that slow-moving ethics approval damages 'bleeding edge' digital research that seeks to capture fleeting trends as technologies rapidly come and go. For example, researchers aiming to examine online social media platform Parler needed to act quickly before it was deplatformed in 2021 by Amazon, whose decision to revoke its hosting effectively removed Parler and its data from the internet (Nally, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref80">64</reflink>]; Nicas &amp; Alba, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref81">66</reflink>]). Nevertheless, approval to collect such data depends on ethics committees' interpretations of ethics requirements, which are often linked to whether they define digital methodologies as engaging in <emph>primary</emph> or <emph>secondary</emph> data collection, whether that data collection occurs in an <emph>active</emph> or a <emph>passive</emph> way, and whether the data collected is <emph>public</emph> or <emph>private</emph> (Gundur et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref82">37</reflink>]; Reamer, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref83">68</reflink>]).</p> <p>Primary collection methodologies involve human research and undergo a more rigorous ethical review than secondary data collection, which involves non-human resources, such as government census data, police crime statistics, and digitally archived textbooks (Anabo et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref84">2</reflink>]). Primary data collection may occur via active or passive digital methodologies. With active digital methodologies, researchers identify themselves as such and actively participate in communications that drive the research dialogue. Active digital methodologies, such as overt digital ethnographies, generally map onto analogue data collection and assessment techniques well; however, digital spaces have distinct properties from analogue ones, such as the inability to determine respondents' age (Cottee &amp; Cunliffe, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref85">21</reflink>]; Esquinas et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref86">28</reflink>]).</p> <p>With passive digital methodologies, 'researchers act as observers without direct interaction with the data's creator or source and participants are unaware that they are being observed for research purposes' (Anabo et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref87">2</reflink>], p. 138). Passive methodologies include web-crawling and scraping[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref88">3</reflink>] large datasets from websites, hyperlink analysis, application programming interface (API),[<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref89">4</reflink>] querying and data mining,[<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref90">5</reflink>] covert ethnographic observation, and online content analysis (Anabo et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref91">2</reflink>]; Eysenbach &amp; Till, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref92">30</reflink>]). Ethics committees, however, do not treat the data gleaned from such techniques consistently (Friesen et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref93">35</reflink>]); what constitutes 'open source' data continues to be debated (Gundur et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref94">37</reflink>]). For example, with forum posts, although the data's owners do not explicitly grant permission for further use and analysis of the data, permission may be implied when the data is placed in a public space (Tripathy, [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref95">78</reflink>]). Another point of contention is the publication of re-identifiable datasets, whereby the identities of the people whose personal data forms the data sets can be reconstructed and accurately established either by piecing together the information collected or combining distinct datasets (Australian Bureau of Statistics, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref96">4</reflink>]). Examples include data sets formed of information collected from dating website OkCupid (Resnick, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref97">69</reflink>]), online service provider America Online (AOL; Barbaro et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref98">6</reflink>]), and social media website Facebook (Flick, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref99">31</reflink>]; Kaufman, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref100">43</reflink>]; Kramer et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref101">46</reflink>]). Ethical considerations and risk determinations are further complicated when designating 'implied public domain' sources as primary (human research) or secondary (archival) data (Carusi &amp; Jirotka, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref102">15</reflink>]; Floridi, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref103">33</reflink>]).</p> <p>A small literature presents ethical concerns regarding the study of criminal activity in digital contexts. These concerns include researchers' obligations when witnessing harmful or criminal behaviors online (Franzke et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref104">34</reflink>]; Sharkey et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref105">74</reflink>]; Stern, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref106">76</reflink>]); ethical versus unethical hacking for research (Décary-Hétu et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref107">25</reflink>]); researcher safety (Conway, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref108">19</reflink>]); and how risk interacts with online criminological research (Martin &amp; Christin, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref109">55</reflink>]). Legalities and ethical clarity of scraping and web-crawling affect many dark-web and cybercrime researchers who use these techniques to collect large amounts of data (Brewer et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref110">8</reflink>]; Décary-Hétu &amp; Aldridge, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref111">24</reflink>]; Friesen et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref112">35</reflink>]). Finally, echoing the reality for qualitative analogue research, an ethics committee's stance on digital ethnographies impacts whether researchers can conceal their investigative purpose to gain unprecedented access to previously inaccessible populations (Ashford, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref113">3</reflink>]; Barbosa &amp; Milan, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref114">7</reflink>]). Other digital ethics concerns prominent in the literature include how to retain participant anonymity (Burles &amp; Bally, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref115">14</reflink>]; Metcalf &amp; Crawford, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref116">61</reflink>]) and how to define public and private spaces on the internet (Golder et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref117">36</reflink>]; Gundur et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref118">37</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-4">This study</hd> <p>To evaluate why ethical review may reject digital methodologies in criminological projects, the roadblocks these projects encounter, and the experiences researchers face when submitting their projects for ethical review, this study deployed a mixed-methods approach, consisting of two separate but intertwined procedures: a content analysis of criminological literature that had employed digital methodologies and an online survey of scholars who had submitted criminological studies with digital methodologies through ethical review.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-5">Content analysis</hd> <p>Discussions of ethical processes in published criminological publications are inconsistent; papers typically only mention whether they passed or were exempt from ethical review and offer little additional information. To our knowledge, there are no prior examinations of how publications in criminology report their ethical approval and ethics processes; however, such analyses have been undertaken for gray literature publications (Anabo et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref119">2</reflink>]) and research on internet message board Reddit (Proferes et al., [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref120">67</reflink>]); these studies informed our methodological design. Given the relatively recent increase in digital methodological deployment, we searched criminological papers, published from January 2016 to July 2021, that used digital methodologies to collect data. Of these, we included papers that clearly reported a methodology that used digital methods to collect primary data or scraped 'implied public domain' data, were published in English, were criminological, and did not replicate studies. In total, we identified 120 unique peer-reviewed journal articles, the content of which resulted in data saturation.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-6">Survey</hd> <p>Our analysis of published papers canvassed projects that had passed ethical review and had discussed their engagement with ethics committees; consequently, it represented the survivorship bias of successful projects. Researchers whose projects ended due to failed ethical review do not commonly publish their rejection process or the concerns that made their projects non-viable.</p> <p>Thus, to bring visibility to a rarely discussed element of institutional ethical review, we surveyed digital researchers whose digital designs experienced ethical rejections or alterations. These negative experiences have been, to our knowledge, only shared anecdotally yet they indicate valuable lessons to those who need to undergo an ethical review process of their research. Through Twitter posts, we recruited respondents who matched the selection criteria; through an email invitation, we recruited authors whose work featured in the literature collected for the content analysis. Each email invitation was personalized to indicate that we had read the recipient's work and targeted them accordingly. The survey gathered select demographic data, details about the ethics processing timeframe, committee feedback, and final ruling of disclosed projects. Finally, the survey concluded with several open-ended questions, regarding respondents' beliefs surrounding their ethics committees' ability to assess the risk of and to support digital methodologies.</p> <p>The survey had notable limitations: it was designed from our experiences and from literature that considered ethical review processes almost exclusively in the Anglosphere; researchers operating in different ethics traditions could not engage with our line of questioning. Additionally, the survey did not request the backend communications between researchers and their ethics committees, making it impossible to elucidate how ethics committees engage in the decision-making process.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-7">Analytical approach</hd> <p>Both datasets underwent thematic analysis using NVivo data analysis software (Kiger &amp; Varpio, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref121">44</reflink>]). Our coding framework was derived from our review of the digital ethics literature. It was designed to examine respondents' experiences with the ethics process and key information, including biographic information (e.g. author's location and institution type); data collected (e.g. data type, platform from which data was harvested, method of data capture); and ethical process (e.g. acknowledgement of approval and reflections on ethical process or objections and concerns raised in ethical review). Together, the analysis uncovered the 'invisible' nature of rejected or altered projects at various stages of institutional ethical review.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-8">Ethical approval</hd> <p>This research was approved by our university's ethics committee. It was evaluated by the low-risk section; one reviewer was concerned that the research would cast a bad light on ethics committees. We addressed this concern by asserting that although rejection processes are not openly discussed, they are inherent to the review process; moreover, researchers need to understand this process so that they can write considered and evidenced applications. That explanation allowed our project to proceed unamended.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-9">Results</hd> <p>Our literature sample represented authors based in 16 countries, with the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada most prominent. The 120 publications offered 107 unique authors, 74 unique journals, 72 unique tertiary institutions, and seven unique non-tertiary non-profit, private, or government research facilities. Some institutions reoccurred: the University of Montreal (Canada) and Michigan State University (US) reoccurred seven times; the University College London (UK) followed with six, and Deakin University (Australia) appeared four times. All other institutions appeared three or fewer times; most appeared only once.</p> <p>The research examined in this sample focused primarily on four platforms; Twitter (20.8%), Facebook (14.2%), Reddit (9.2%), and YouTube (9.2%) were the most named. However, when single-appearance platforms were considered collectively based on function, platforms based within the darknet became most prominent, featuring in 25% of the studies. In terms of methodology, online content analysis was the most common (37.5%), followed by automatic web crawlers and scrapers (20.8%), API data extraction techniques (19.2%), online surveys and recruitment (17.5% each, as they often occurred concurrently), and online ethnographies (13.3%).</p> <p>A minority (27.5%) of the studies disclosed their approval status. Institutions, generally, do not require this disclosure to be featured in publications, and journals only sometimes request it, making declaring ethical clearance often optional. Moreover, although authors may assume exempt status, a statement of exemption is no guarantee that an ethics committee deemed a project exempt from review (Proferes et al., [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref122">67</reflink>]). Nevertheless, ethics approval disclosure may indicate engagement with and awareness of ethical conduct when conducting research. In our sample, 72.5% had no disclosure of ethical review. Of those that disclosed their ethical review status, 18.2% stated that they were exempt; 24.2% stated only statements of approval; 48.5% stated they had gained ethics approval and provided some details of their ethical engagement; and 9.1% included the statement of ethics approval along with detailed discussions of their ethical engagement.</p> <p>Twelve ethical concerns were raised across the sample. Concerns regarding privacy, including anonymity, confidentiality, and identifiability, were expressed most frequently (45.8%). However, as the debate between what constitutes a public versus a private space online is intimately linked with concerns of digital methodologies and is prominent in its own right, whether data are private or public was the second most described concern (35.8%). Other notable themes included informed consent (20.8%); data accessibility (18.3%), and risk (17.5%). All other concerns appeared in less than 10% of the publications. These included adhering to terms of service, engaging in appropriate disclosure protocols, adhering to platform norms, the research's legality, the research's impact on vulnerable populations, data storage requirements, and deceiving respondents.</p> <p>Notably, only 10% of the 120 publications selected engaged with unofficial digital ethics guidelines, such as those provided by the Association of Internet Researchers (Franzke et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref123">34</reflink>]). While 15.8% of the publications discussed their ethics process in any detail, only three – all UK-based authors – explicitly described their ethics processes (Cottee &amp; Cunliffe, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref124">21</reflink>]; Lavorgna et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref125">47</reflink>]; Lavorgna &amp; Myles, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref126">48</reflink>]). These three publications indicated an engagement with not only current ethical guidelines and literature but also ethics committees attached to their institutions. Each voiced a willingness to work with their ethics committees to ensure participant and researcher safety. Lavorgna and colleagues engaged proactively with the ethics of online research (Lavorgna et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref127">47</reflink>]) and adhered to the policies of the platforms accessed while simultaneously safeguarding participants' privacy and anonymity (Lavorgna &amp; Myles, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref128">48</reflink>]). Cottee's and Cunliffe's ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref129">21</reflink>]) study stood alone in noting roadblocks faced in getting ethical approval; moreover, they identified the ethics committee's demand for a legal opinion regarding their research and the resulting cost, the committee's concern regarding content of the materials shown, and the conditions imposed on advertising the survey which restricted its reach. While Cottee and Cunliffe eventually worked through these roadblocks to reach publication, they faced a time-consuming and costly process that not all digital projects can withstand. Furthermore, this process was significantly extended by the uncertainty that both the researchers and the ethics committee had in resolving concerns.</p> <p>The dearth of accounts of ethical difficulties in the literature underscored the need to survey researchers on this topic. We ran our online survey from 1 May 2021 to 31 August 2021. We obtained 30 completed survey responses, with 42 projects disclosed since respondents could disclose multiple projects within their responses. The final survey sample contained six countries: the UK (42.9%), the USA (26.2%), Australia (11.9%), Canada (11.9%), Spain (4.8%), and Denmark (2.4%). The most common roles held by researchers at the time of their projects' ethical review processes were assistant professor or lecturer (45.2%) and graduate student (16.7%). The participants most often reported that their institutions were either research-focused (40.5%) or an even mix of both research and teaching (47.6%); the remainder were teaching focused (4.8%) or unspecified (7.1%).</p> <p>Despite a significant difference in the institutional contexts, respondents' experiences were largely similar. Some reported difficulties in navigating their ethics committees at earlier points in their research careers. Many, as discussed below, expressed that their committees had changed over time; as membership, with expertise or training in digital research, increased, committees were better able to conduct relevant and reasonable ethics reviews of their proposed research. We note that two scholars wrote us to illustrate that our survey did not adequately capture the configurations of their institutions and experiences. One indicated that they pertained to a specialized research institute that had a localized ethics process staffed by highly trained individuals who were acutely aware of the methods and risks of the digital research they reviewed. Two survey respondents echoed this experience, attributing their positive ethics experiences to committees that were localized in nature and run out of their departments rather than their universities. The other scholar pointed out that, although an ethical review body did not exist at their European institution, their project was required to be General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant.</p> <p>The largest proportion of methodologies in the survey results included automated web scraping/crawling (40.5%), followed by online content analysis (26.2%), online ethnographies, online surveys, and online recruitment (11.9% each), online interviews (9.5%), and API data extraction (2.4%). The remaining surveys (7.1%) did not specify a methodology. Under half of the surveyed projects reported using open source data (42.9%). Of the 18 projects that used open source data, nearly half (44.4%) reported that their ethics committees had concerns directly related to the open source nature of their data. Their concerns were closely aligned with the ethical concerns raised in the publications and the generalized concerns raised by ethics committees throughout the projects. For instance, US-based Assistant Professor 19 noted, 'The IRB did not fully understand publicly facing web data. Once this was addressed, the project cleared the IRB as "exempted,"' and UK-based Lecturer 27 said that their 'Ethics committee still wanted all open source data to be anonymised to protect participants from potential harm.'</p> <p>The survey asked participants to report whether they had approached their ethics committees to inquire about their project's validity before submitting a research proposal. Nearly two thirds (59.5%) made no such inquiry; about a third (28.6%) passed this inquiry and proceeded to proposal submission, while about a tenth (11.9%) did not submit their projects because the ethics committees' feedback indicated that rejection was likely. The survey then asked participants to describe the subsequent ethics process.</p> <p>Of the 37 projects that proceeded to ethical review, 16 projects passed through with minimal re-submissions or alterations to their initial design, and 11 passed with no re-submissions or significant alterations requested even though their ethics committees expressed concerns with their use of digital methodologies. One project was still proceeding through ethics at the time of responding; one participant reported that their project was designed before their institution required ethical review. Four projects passed through the ethics process with significant alterations to their initial design. The four remaining projects were ultimately rejected: two after initial submission, and two after resubmissions that required further redesigning.</p> <p>Of the nine projects that were reported rejected in the inquiry stage (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref130">5</reflink>) or after ethical review (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref131">4</reflink>), five were based in the UK, two in Spain, and two in the US. Two of these projects proposed content analysis methodologies; four proposed web-scrapers/crawlers to harvest data automatically, and three did not state a methodology. One studied an online drug market; four broadly studied the darknet; one studied an unspecified pedophile support forum; one studied social media behaviors using Twitter data; and two did not report the platform their studies attempted to access.</p> <p>Researchers of two of the rejected projects stated that their ethics committees had issued impossible demands. UK-based Lecturer 1 noted that their ethics committee required informed consent for the collection of existing posts that were on darknet forums and, thus, publicly available. And UK-based Senior Lecturer 21 noted that their ethics committee not only banned them 'from using university infrastructure to conduct the project, essentially killing off the project,' but also created time delays which damaged or ended their projects: 'The landscape for these [extremist] groups is constantly evolving and shifting. We also hoped to connect our work to larger relevant issues in politics at the time, however we were unable to discuss our work without ethical approval and so missed the opportunity for impact.' Throughout these accounts, the researchers expressed frustration; the ethics committees had been 'conservative,' 'unreasonable,' 'alarmist,' and their reasons for rejection had been 'unfounded.'</p> <p>Ethics committees required most projects to be resubmitted for further consideration. Of the 20 projects that reported resubmission data, most underwent only one round of resubmission (65%), but resubmitting twice (15%), thrice (10%), or more (5%) did occur. The remaining projects were unsure or did not report resubmission. The timeframes for these processes varied. Nearly half of the projects were reviewed and then re-reviewed within two weeks of submission/revision; about a third were reviewed/re-reviewed between two weeks and a month, and about a fifth were reviewed over a month, though the longest review periods involved up to eight months.</p> <p>According to the survey respondents, their ethics committees raised the same ethics concerns noted throughout the literature. Risk – to the researchers, the potential research subjects, and the institution – was the most commonly stated concern, appearing 19 separate times in varying contexts. UK-based Lecturer 27 summed up the feelings of several respondents: 'Research ethics committees are often overly risk averse, due in part to unfamiliarity with the nature of online projects.' UK-based Associate Professor 7 indicated that they 'had to put in place a range of protective measures (e.g. use of dedicated computers) that were really excessive considering the low-risk nature of the study.'</p> <p>Ethics committees also expressed concerns over confidentiality, anonymity, and identifiability, most commonly of participants but occasionally of researchers (15 mentions). In discussing anonymity, respondents described processes designed to protect participants and ensure their safety. Moreover, researchers rarely cited anonymity while complaining about ethics feedback, and no project had been rejected for problems of anonymity.</p> <p>Finally, ethics committees were concerned with the legality of the information accessed (11 mentions). The risk of accessing illicit materials, including child exploitation materials, terrorist communications, or propaganda, remains a notable criminologically-specific concern, especially when researching the darknet. Although ethics committees were concerned that accessing these materials would impact researchers' wellbeing and create legal issues, some respondents felt that ethics committees were unreasonably concerned with the risk of accessing child exploitation materials. UK-based Senior Lecturer 11 raised a point that several other UK academics raised as well:</p> <p>The ethics committee, again unable to understand the nature of the tools we were going to use, were scared that we'd collect child porn or other illegal material. [...] Any attempt I made to assure them was met with mindless worry not based on the reality of what we proposed as if by taking information from the darknet one is <emph>necessarily</emph> going to access child porn. [...] I eventually abandoned the project.</p> <p>However, UK-based Lecturer 17 found a workaround: 'The committee was concerned the images could contain child sexual abuse material, so we ended up working with IWF [Internet Watch Foundation], the UK's INHOPE organisation, to check the images against their hashlist of known child abuse images.'</p> <p>Although the survey focused on negative experiences with ethics committees, when asked to consider their projects' level of success, participants skewed positive, with 81% saying that their projects had been successful. Of the 29 participants who answered whether their ethics committees were adept at judging the risks of digital methods, 55.2% said yes; 27.6% said no, and 17.2% were mixed. Even those who stated that they did not feel their ethics committees were adept at judging risks tempered their responses by noting that ethics committees have been improving over time, particularly as they gain more digital researchers and more digital methodological awareness. US-based Professor 2 described their positive experience: 'This [project] was an entirely different experience, which the IRB attributed to a change in both its membership composition and improved education in the use of online data. As a result, it was a far better experience.' Nonetheless, others still reported variability in ethics committees' rulings, while some respondents questioned whether better training, standardized guidelines, the presence of digital researchers, or direct consultation opportunities between digital researchers and their ethics committees would improve their ethics committee's capacity to make better decisions.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-10">Discussion</hd> <p>This article explored how ethics committees have interacted with sensitive digital research projects. It showed that when ineffective ethical review occurs, it affects research with digital methodologies and diminishes researchers' ability to conduct cutting-edge research. The article also argued that pinpointing critical intersections of ethical review and digital methodologies can reduce the disconnect between digital researchers and their ethics committees. By targeting the 'invisible' processes of ethics rejection, this paper explored these intersections, and by considering researchers' negative and positive experiences with ethical review processes, this paper elucidated the process of ethical review and the core concerns committees hold regarding digital methodologies that study sensitive topics, namely risk, privacy, and legality.</p> <p>Respondents who experienced rejection or were forced to modify their projects significantly noted a disconnect between their ethics committees' expectations and their own. Respondents believed that their ethics committees were not appropriately acknowledging the differences between online and offline research. As one survey respondent stated, their ethics committee made 'unhelpful assumptions that similar principles can apply to both online and offline projects;' others felt that their ethics committees had failed to understand their methods or the nature of the data to be collected. Many expressed frustration that consent requests were 'completely unreasonable' or constituted an 'undue burden,' particularly when navigating data in large internet message boards, such as Reddit or 4Chan, or in darknet forums. Ethics committees failed to understand that gaining individual consent or verifying the age of every user is an impossible task, and, if attempted, could result in the researcher being banned from the digital spaces.</p> <p>The concept of risk, broadly stated, created high levels of frustration among respondents. Nonetheless, risk was the most relevant criminological concern, given its prominence in research where offending is commonplace (Stern, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref132">76</reflink>]). Risk included a wide range of concerns: the risk to researchers in accessing illicit materials (most commonly child exploitation material); the risk to researchers from criminal groups retaliating at them through digital means; the risk to participants included in datasets without their knowledge; and the risk that researchers may uncover or encourage criminal activity. While the risk to the researcher was an emerging concept in the analyzed publications, it was cited more commonly within the surveyed responses, usually concerning researcher exposure to illicit material or retributive attacks from criminal groups. Survey respondents often disapproved of their ethics committees' judgements surrounding risk, finding them 'really excessive,' or 'overly risk-averse.' Nevertheless, a small number of respondents saw their committees as being 'far too lenient.' These findings highlight the need for future research explicitly focusing on risk, ethics, and digital research on sensitive topics. How ethics committees perceive and negotiate risk regarding emerging technologies is a critical component of navigating digital research ethics, especially when digital researchers intersect with criminogenic populations in ways that are not translatable to offline contexts.</p> <p>Concerns with privacy caused less consternation than concerns with informed consent or risk. Both the publications and the survey respondents noted the steps taken to mitigate against participant re-identification. Unlike informed consent, privacy and related concepts caused less contention within the datasets for researchers proceeding through ethical review. Survey respondents noted the steps successfully implemented within research and the awareness of harm, while several stated that their ethics committees, especially those experienced with digital methodologies, had given them valuable advice for protecting their participants' privacy. Moreover, although privacy was the most frequently coded ethical theme throughout the published literature, privacy garnered the lowest number of complaints throughout the survey. This finding suggests that researchers and ethics committees may be communicating successfully to reach optimal outcomes for privacy. As consensus is reached between researchers and ethics committees, each party's ability to function effectively increases.</p> <p>Roadblocks occur when researchers and ethics committees have discordant expectations. Throughout the survey, digital researchers noted how the variability of ethical oversight and ethics committees' limited understanding of digital issues, including the potential volatility of digital data, were the most common roadblocks to ethics approval they faced. The lack of standardization across the approval experience suggests that some of the projects that were reported as rejected or altered by ethics committees would have likely been approved elsewhere. For example, UK-based Senior Lecturer 11 gave details of three separate projects which used automated data harvesting processes to pull darknet marketplace data: one project experienced minimal oversight; another experienced an engaged and understanding committee, while the third experienced firm rejection due to concerns about illicit material access. Projects with similar methodological designs and digital spaces have been conducted in the US (Duxbury &amp; Haynie, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref133">27</reflink>]), the UK (Negri et al., [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref134">65</reflink>]), and Sweden (Moeller et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref135">62</reflink>]). These projects' ethics committees must have measured the risks of automated data harvesting differently from Senior Lecturer 11ʹs committee; thus, they proceeded to publication while Senior Lecturer 11ʹs project did not.</p> <p>Variable ethical oversight means that researchers in one location may struggle to attain approval for research that would gain approval elsewhere. These disparities could negatively impact researchers' careers, driving them from institutions and limiting their capacity to conduct work and make contributions to their fields. While there is little prospect that a single national or international ethics review process could exist, one potential solution is a system of interinstitutional review for ethics applications to enable cross-institutional understandings of best practice and accepted procedure, similar to the interinstitutional grade standardization practices that occur at UK universities. Another solution would be to normalize how ethics processes must be reported in peer-reviewed publications; however, this strategy could create a barrier to the publication of research from authors based in places that do not have institutional ethics review systems.</p> <p>Nearly half of the projects within the survey were impacted by their ethics committees' limited understanding surrounding digital methodologies. This result supports concerns in the literature that ethics committees lack training in digital issues (Bruckman, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref136">9</reflink>]; Buchanan &amp; Ess, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref137">13</reflink>]; Huh-Yoo &amp; Rader, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref138">40</reflink>]; McCormack et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref139">60</reflink>]) and are reluctant to engage with emerging technologies (Bruckman, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref140">9</reflink>]; Clapp et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref141">16</reflink>]; McCormack et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref142">60</reflink>]). Survey respondents stated that their committees were unable to understand their projects, unwilling to engage with the field to further their understanding, and were 'under-prepared to address digital realities,' sometimes forcing researchers to expose themselves to unacceptable risk. Australia-based Senior Research Fellow 25 was among those who were forced to identify themselves as researchers:</p> <p>Other researchers have not [revealed their identities] because identifying oneself in darknet spaces is unusual and may result in identity attacks from hackers. The ethics committee didn't have the background to realise this but as researchers we mitigated it by upping our personal identity security to protect ourselves.</p> <p>Here, the researchers knew the risks they faced. However, less experienced researchers, lacking appropriate guidance, could fail to realize the potential dangers of identifying themselves openly online. A digitally savvy ethics committee would provide a safety net for less experienced researchers, close gaps in their knowledge, and offer comprehensive oversight.</p> <p>Nevertheless, some respondents stated that their overall experience with their ethics committees was positive or, at least, that their projects had been successful. They attributed their success to the oversight of engaged and well-trained committees. One Australian researcher wrote: 'We don't normally encounter issues with ethics because of how our ethics is organised and because they see a lot of digital media ethics.' US-based Professor 2 said that their ethics committee is 'savvy with understanding online research, so I feel that they are able to support such research.' Such statements underscore that when committees engage effectively with digital methods, the outcomes for digital researchers improve.</p> <p>Finally, time for review was another significant roadblock. Given the volatility of some data, lengthy ethics processes presented significant problems for both the publications and the survey respondents. While no form of digital data is safe from the threat of deletion, the ephemerality of certain data can put immense time pressure on the collection process.</p> <p>In sum, by focusing on the rejection data, this article offers insight into criminology's intersection with digital research ethics. It concludes that to better engage with digital issues, ethics committees could benefit from guidelines and training, members from digital research fields, and further research on ethical best practices. By bringing researcher and ethics committee expectations in harmony, sensitive but important research projects can be properly adjudicated and adjusted, resulting in improved research capacity and outcomes.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-11">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>The authors thank Isobel Scavetta for her editorial support.</p> <hd id="AN0174601366-12">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0174601366-13"> <title> Notes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref62" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> A tweet is a brief post on the social networking site Twitter.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref39" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Likes are an indication that a user has approved of a post or piece of content and is achieved by a click of a button on the post. 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Addressing conceptual gaps in big data research ethics: An application of contextual integrity. Social Media + Society, 4 (2), 1 – 11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118768300</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Charlie Winter and R.V. Gundur</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author</p> <p></p> <p>Charlie Winter is a doctoral student at Flinders University. Find Charlie online at twitter.com/AWintersPlace.</p> <p>R.V.Gundur is a senior lecturer at Flinders University who studies illicit enterprise and cybercrime. He is the author of Trying to Make It: The Enterprises, Gangs, and People of the American Drug Trade. Find R. 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| Header | DbId: eric DbLabel: ERIC An: EJ1406679 AccessLevel: 3 PubType: Academic Journal PubTypeId: academicJournal PreciseRelevancyScore: 0 |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Challenges in Gaining Ethical Approval for Sensitive Digital Social Science Studies – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Charlie+Winter%22">Charlie Winter</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8992-4346">0000-0001-8992-4346</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22R%2E+V%2E+Gundur%22">R. V. Gundur</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4241-8811">0000-0003-4241-8811</externalLink>) – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22International+Journal+of+Social+Research+Methodology%22"><i>International Journal of Social Research Methodology</i></searchLink>. 2024 27(1):31-46. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 16 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2024 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Ethics%22">Ethics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Program+Validation%22">Program Validation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Sciences%22">Social Sciences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Digital+Literacy%22">Digital Literacy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Telecommunications%22">Telecommunications</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Experimenter+Characteristics%22">Experimenter Characteristics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Confidentiality%22">Confidentiality</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Standards%22">Standards</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Criminology%22">Criminology</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Research+Methodology%22">Research Methodology</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Science+Research%22">Social Science Research</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Researchers%22">Researchers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Publications%22">Publications</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1080/13645579.2022.2122226 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 1364-5579<br />1464-5300 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: The swift evolution of digital spaces challenges the established norms of ethical research policy. Ineffective ethical review diminishes researchers' ability to conduct cutting-edge and socially sensitive research, institutions' ability to engage at the forefront of technology, and the relationship between researcher and committee. In criminology and other disciplines that navigate sensitive research, especially when working with ephemeral data in digital field sites, researchers require fast ethical approval turnarounds and ethics committees that can navigate ethical issues that challenge norms of analogue research. Few publications consider the ethical challenges that digital research on topics of criminological interest encounter. This study appraises experiences of ethical review in published studies and draws on a survey of digital criminological researchers who faced rejections and roadblocks from ethical review. We show that, when researchers report a disconnect between their needs and their ethics committees' responses, roadblocks to ethics approval emerge and preclude research, that may be authorized in other comparable research institutions, from proceeding. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2024 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1406679 |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1080/13645579.2022.2122226 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 16 StartPage: 31 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Ethics Type: general – SubjectFull: Program Validation Type: general – SubjectFull: Social Sciences Type: general – SubjectFull: Digital Literacy Type: general – SubjectFull: Telecommunications Type: general – SubjectFull: Experimenter Characteristics Type: general – SubjectFull: Confidentiality Type: general – SubjectFull: Standards Type: general – SubjectFull: Criminology Type: general – SubjectFull: Research Methodology Type: general – SubjectFull: Social Science Research Type: general – SubjectFull: Researchers Type: general – SubjectFull: Publications Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Challenges in Gaining Ethical Approval for Sensitive Digital Social Science Studies Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Charlie Winter – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: R. V. Gundur IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2024 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 1364-5579 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1464-5300 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 27 – Type: issue Value: 1 Titles: – TitleFull: International Journal of Social Research Methodology Type: main |
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