Ethical Considerations of Distributed Participatory Design with Children

In this workshop, we invite researchers, practitioners and designers to reflect on ethical issues arising from Distributed Participatory Design (DPD) research with children. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an increase in DPD with children. DPD primarily relies on digital tools and online connections, and may be synchronous or asynchronous. Distributing participation across geographical boundaries, or across different ages or abilities of participants, requires careful consideration of ethical issues around recruitment, relationships building and engagement, privacy, power dynamics, and situated and cultural practices. Ongoing collaborative discussion is required to identify and address the different types of ethical issues which may arise when planning and conducting DPD projects with children.

This workshop has 2 aims: (1) Identify ethical challenges that are specific to the DPD approaches in large projects; and (2) Develop solutions to these ethical challenges. The challenges and solutions will be considered in light of: research questions, design process (including participant recruitment), administration (including data management), maintaining and ending relationships with participants, and collaboration among researchers. Based on the workshop outcomes, we would like to develop a checklist of important aspects to consider for any DPD project. Workshop attendees will be invited to expand their position papers for inclusion in a special issue of a highly-ranked journal.

This 4 hour workshop will bring together researchers with experience in ethics and/or (Distributed) Participatory Design with children, as well as participants (including parents and carers) who will have the chance to discuss ethical challenges in a DPD project. This workshop will run in a hybrid format. The drop-in, drop-out format has been chosen to accommodate attendees who need to attend online and may not be able to attend the full four hours, such as those in substantially different time zones.

All interested participants please complete this registration form.

Participants can opt (but are not required) to submit a 2-page position paper via the registration form, explaining your interest and/or experience in ethical complexities in relation to distributed participatory design with children. Position papers will be evaluated based on their relevance to the workshop theme and topics, quality of presentation and potential to encourage debate.