I'm resorting to commenting here, because disqus is playing up again. I wonder if we should let students decide about this? We could share some good posts from the life science stream or other on our academic feeds and see if they pick it up? Some already have... - Jo Badge

Mmm, not sure... - AJCann

BTW, please get Chrome! - AJCann

on the list to do today ;-) - Jo Badge

via @pigironjoe Be explicit in what you are going to do (ideally before you start) and seek informed consent from your participants. - AJCann

Well, they know the service is public and have made a choice between public or private - is that informed consent? - AJCann

via @pigironjoe I don't think that it is ethical for researchers to view all online activity as equivalent to publishing. - AJCann

What if I reveal my "teaching identity" and other people follow the links? - AJCann

When I gave the option to my students last term to use their full name, initials or pseudonym on our class wiki all except for one out of 27 used their real name - consistent with what I observed in the past. If you present it to them in that way and your students respond completely differently that would be interesting and worth finding out why. - Jean-Claude Bradley

the usual question over informed consent that needs to be asked is how confident you are that the students are appropriately informed of potential consequences. So I reckon if you lay it out and they make their choices that is reasonable - I dont think there are any serious pitfalls that are not reasonably obvious (these are live interactions, some might find aspects of them offensive or upsetting, and on the flip side if they upset or offend people out there that can have real consequences - the same for doing anything online really). The only other gotcha is that whatever you are doing there can't be any way in which it is an experiment in which the students are subjects because they can't really give informed consent to that. And you'd need ethics approval anyway... - Cameron Neylon

We have ethical approval for use of social tools on these modules, so that's OK. I think the majority of students are well aware of the consequences of posting on social networks. Mostly very mature so far. Approximately 2/3 public Friendfeed accounts, 1/3 private so far. Question is, does that choice count as informed consent? Eventually, those with public accounts are going to find they have subscribers beyond the teaching staff. Some have already joined the Life Scientists Group of their own volition... - AJCann

I think if you've told them in a documented form that they have the option of a private feed and they should think about the risks and benefits then that should surely count as a reasonable approach to informed consent. And I only hedge about telling them because public is the default. The key is they've made an active choice surely? Obviously I am not either a lawyer or a professionally trained ethicist etc etc... - Cameron Neylon

Neither am I :-) Yes, they have had written instructions and advice about Friendfeed, but this doesn't fully comply with our normal practices regarding research and informed consent, namely that the participants should sign and return a physical copy of a letter indicating that they have received and understood the advice, and that anonymity is maintained. I'm prepared to bend the first condition as it's more of an anti-legal action measure than one designed to protect the participants, but the nature of Friendfeed means that the second condition is problematic. - AJCann

I've had about 41 students in our course that is open notebook science. All of them have chosen to use their real name and participate. This includes at least a couple students who I find it utterly surprising that they did so. Others on this thread above me have thought about this more seriously than I, so my experience is mostly just perspective (and definitely NOT and experiment! yikes, I need to be careful how I describe my experience? bleh). But my perspective is that students here (New Mexico, USA) embrace it. If it's a completely elective course, I can actually agree with openness being a requirement. As a required core course, I still think students should have an opt-out option. - Steve Koch

AJ, I'm so glad you've got this discussion going. I've been doing the opposite of Steve, which is to say, my class blog is private and although the students all use their real names, the group is closed. Even when I tell them I'd like to brag on them by making it open so their work can be pointed to, they balk. Perhaps I'm setting it up wrong? But with a background in social science, my ethical sense tells me that students cannot be forced to go open any more than human participants can. Hell, I'd like to use the blogs as pedagogical examples to other teachers! We used to have a permission form in our Center that we asked students to complete at the beginning of class. It asked them to sign yea/nae for whether we could use their work anonymously for research purposes. I think I'll go back to that. - Mickey Schafer

From a research point of view, thinking along IRB terms, I don't believe that students creating either public or private feeds points to informed consent. Informed consent implies that students are aware of both risks/benefits before making the choice -- at least as much the experimenter is able to help them understand. And as Cameron pointed out, being online can be both rewarding and risky. The scariest consent form I ever signed was for white-water rafting, and it detailed in excruciating clarity the risks involved, the last one of which was "death." The incongruity made me laugh. Could something similar be set up with students? "You may experience ridicule, hurt feelings, bruised egos, and insult. You may also experience personal pride, increased confidence, an understanding of public branding, and loss of isolation through social contact". - Mickey Schafer

While anonymity is always an issue, the highly interconnected nature of friendfeed makes it particularly acute on our project. I'm planning some blog posts next week, but they have to be screenshots with the IDs obscured - such a shame we won't be able to connect live. Eventually of course, the students will escape and connect themselves up. I guess that's when we know we've been successful. - AJCann

AJ I don't think that going on FF is any more visible than writing on a public wiki. In fact a well-indexed public wiki will turn up on a Google search while I don't think most FF threads will. I warned the students that their work would be on Google by searching their name and so far they have all been happy about that when they try it. - Jean-Claude Bradley

If it's not an experiment, then IRB's not really an issue, right? Do athletes have to sign informed consent to have their games broadcast on TV? How about performance arts majors? I think it's important training for 21st century scientists, and in university it is even appropriate to even force them to do so. - Steve Koch

Steve is absolutely right - you have to be careful to not frame what you are doing with social software as an "experiment". You can learn from it generally but don't set it up to evaluate specific pedagogical goals. - Jean-Claude Bradley

According to our university's IRB website, if you are planning on "disseminating knowledge" then you are running an experiment. Class-level project are IRF exempt since the assumption is that they are not for public consumption. However, this is where the use of social tools confuses the issue. If a project is classroom-specific, and the information is presented using a public medium, can it be considered for "knowledge dissemination"? Currently, I am erring on the side of caution, even if I do think I'm flying so far below the radar that no one will likely care. Jean-Claude, I'm concerned that if you don't "set it up to evaluate specific pedagogical goals", then you have a difficult time justifying the effort to both students and administration, especially if you are making use of academic resources. And Steve, yes, as far as I know, athletes do indeed have to sign consent forms -- or the form is rolled into their contract. The same happens at any setting where photos can be taken; I have to sign consent forms for whether pictures of my kids can be used for promotional purposes. - Mickey Schafer

It's common practice for all work in HE involving students ("Human Subjects") to require ethical approval, which we have. The students can work on friendfeed, the issue I face is whether I can tell anyone about it because that would reveal their identity. You know, I know, their identity is public anyway (unless they chose to set their account as private, which some have), but that's the frustrating part. they can chose to reveal themselves, but I can't reveal them. - AJCann

Presumably AJ is at least contemplating writing this up as per previous Leicester work with Twitter and thus it is potentially part of an experiment and requires IRB clearance for that reason if no other? - Peter Miller

I'm a k12 level - not college level, but my friend Jean Claude-Bradley and I were talking about this one over email. With my students, I 1) inform them (and their parents as they are minors) about where we are going - we don't go "public" until 9th grade and even then, their parents have the choice to let them remain with "only friends" viewing. 2) Parents and students choose whether to use a psuedonym or at most can only do first name last initial - they cannot do their full name at all - until they turn 18 at that time, they can if they choose after they graduate. - Vicki Davis

Thanks Vicki -that is a useful data point - even if not at the college level. - Jean-Claude Bradley

@Peter We do have permission. When we publish in a journal all the data will be anonymized. If I point at the live examples on FF however, it leads people directly to the student accounts, which is probably not acceptable to the university. This is a shame because the intention behind this is that it is a "real world" teaching initiative rather than a simulation. Unfortunately, our Ethical Committe probably wouldn't see it that way. - AJCann

I think this is an impossible conundrum because it could also be argued that by not linking live you're denying them opportunities to receive real credit and educational opportunities for their work. Can I make a different suggestion? Draft the post on a private wiki/document and offer the students the opportunity to insert live links into the piece if they so choose? - Cameron Neylon

When you say live links, you mean links to posts on their Friendfeed accounts? The problem with that is connections are traceable through subscriptions, likes, etc. - AJCann

What I'm suggesting is that you create a document and give them the opportunity to disclose (or not) their own identities if they so choose. Absolutely its traceable but _they_ took the decision to actively place the link in a document that was clearly to be made public. It's not actually your doing so issues of ethics committees don't come into it any more than you can tell them whether or not they're allowed a Facebook account. - Cameron Neylon

Hmm, I've just tried posting anonymized snapshots, Unfortunately, since the content is searchable on Friendfeed, that reveals all the accounts. Looks like we'll just have to stay "closed" for now :-( - AJCann