Ethics is applied here to Research With Human Subjects (your interviews).

This information is reinforced in lecture content and readings and is summarized on the course outline. You must submit ethics paperwork as appendices to your instructor.

Grade penalties may be applied for not following ethics guidelines. 

Research Forms

In the Blackboard Course Documents Research Forms folder you will find

General principles

• Stay within the methods permitted by ethics certification (summarized below and on the consent forms) and use instructor-approved forms for recruitment and informed consent

• Use recruitment strategies that involve very minimal disturbance/annoyance. Recruitment should properly identify you as an undergraduate student in COMS 463 at the University of Calgary, the title and purpose of your project, why they have been selected for recruitment, and the research methods, time & effort required.

• Do not coerce people to participate, including social coercion that takes advantage of any roles of influence and authority (i.e. recruiting in your role as leader, coach, manager, supervisor, employer).

• Implement the informed consent process prior to data collection, and obtain a verifiable record of consent to submit in your assignment appendix.

• Respect your participants' time, dignity and privacy during data collection. You represent your research team, course and (to external people) our university.

• Do not falsify or manipulate data. Keep complete records and paperwork that may be required in case of an audit.

Guidelines

Methods:  Interview ONLY

• NO surveys, NO focus groups, NO experiments, NO observations of classrooms or non-public interactions. NO observation/lurking in social networking sites or email lists in order to gather data.

• NO audiotaping without participant permission on a consent form.

• NO videotaping or photography of people other than yourself as part of your research.

Recruitment

• Only directly recruit participants of the type listed here: U of C students outside of COMS 463 W2010, alumni, staff, off-campus organization staff.

o        You will need Dr. Smith’s, Erin Kaipainen’s or Zoe Fleming’s prior approval via email to recruit instructors or members of an organization.  They may wish to forward a recruitment notice and CC you rather than having you contact them directly.

o        Direct recruitment should only occur within your personal network and within small groups (i.e. courses, clubs, networks, programs of study) to which you currently belong. NO spamming or cold-calling of people with whom you do not already have an acquaintance or group affiliation.

o        If you ask someone else to forward a recruitment notice, add this statement:  “Please contact the researcher(s) directly if you are interested.  Your participation is voluntary.  Your participation or non-participation in this research will not be known to the person who forwarded this notice.

• If you recruit by email, place your recruitment statement in the body of the email, and attach the consent form. 
  
  
• All Recruitment correspondence should be cc'd to both Carmen and the EC so that they can help the researcher ensure it follows ethical guidelines, and is likely to be effective within course timelines.

• Do not modify the instructor and community partner recruitment statement.  If you know them yourself, you may add a personal preface.  

• You may need to modify the recruitment statement for students and alumni since it is very formal and general.  Adapt it to the student audience, situation, and genre (email, handout, face to face).  

• Beware of your timeline:  Ideally allow 1 week after the interview is complete to write up the article and compile/submit your paperwork.

Interview phase

• Set up your interview time/place.  Try to arrange a place where both interviewer and interviewee will feel safe and comfortable (i.e. not 10pm in a deserted area of campus) and there is minimal noise (not in Mac Hall food court during lunch, nor at a sports bar).  If you are interviewing a community partner whose office is off campus, consider a telephone interview or arrange to go to a location convenient to them, or their office.

• Bring a print copy of the consent form to the interview.  For telephone interviews, have the consent form in front of you.

• Introduce yourself by name and remind them that this is an interview for COMS 463 for publication on a website. Ask them again how much time they have available to be interviewed.  Let them know you have to talk about the terms of consent first.

• Go over the consent form section by section, in a conversational manner (not reading out every word, but summarizing).  Make sure they check off the proper blanks for audio-recording and permission to cite by name, and permission to contact them for any follow up procedures, i.e. obtaining a photo.

• If you are audiotaping, make sure they check off consent to audiotape the interview.

• Obtain signed consent form before beginning the interview.  You must also include their printed name and email address for verification.

• Thank them for their time, and ensure that you leave them with their own copy of the consent form, or that they have it in an email attachment already.

Raw Data

• Take interview notes during or after the interview.  Make a back up copy of them ASAP. 
  
• If you made an audio file of the conversation, do not try to transcribe all the data word for word because this will take too much time.  Summarize, paraphrase and quote as needed.
• Follow the consent form’s rules regarding raw data access and retention.  Only the people named on your consent form may see your raw data (interview/observation notes, completed surveys, signed consent forms).

o        NO publishing of audio files used to verify interview/observation notes.

o        NO raw data notes or files put in places where other people can access them.

o        NO re-use of this data in other research studies whose investigators and methods are not named on the form.

Ethical reporting of research

• Do not go beyond the terms of the consent information regarding the dissemination of data.

• When research participants, groups or organizations are anonymous, be careful not to identify them by circumstantial information.

• Do everything possible to prevent social harm to vulnerable participants, especially if they say or do things that may anger or offend someone.

• Quote or paraphrase accurately.
  

Additional info

Not every act of information gathering falls under human subjects research ethics procedures. If your project theme involves named resource people and named staff of off-campus organizations, these people are acting as partners or resources, not as research participants. If you ask questions of organizational staff that they would normally answer in the course of their employment, you are gathering relevant information, not conducting "research."

Your instructor will spot-check your appendices for ethics breaches. If misconduct is suspected she will conduct an audit, and if a breach is discovered, she will need to report this to the university authorities. Reports cannot be based on false or unethically obtained data. Records will be retained for a year in case of appeals or ethics issues that arise after the course is over.