led by Dr Ben Collier, University of Edinburgh
The Internet, and how we engage with it, is in a period of change. New sources of data are emerging and some of the old ones are reconfiguring themselves or falling away entirely; forums and message boards sit alongside encrypted chat channels, short video services, fitness trackers, and social media sites increasingly flooded by automated chatbots. As the Internet is changing, so to are norms of what constitutes ethical research in digital spaces. In this session, we will cover some of the core principles and controversies of doing ethical research online, work through some practical examples of developing and assessing ethics cases for complex research projects, and discuss what kinds of futures of research academics might fight for.