Minutes of 'researchers in virtual worlds' event

Howdy

Yesterday I organized an event called "Virtual Worlds/Public Selves" that was a discussion about anthropologists and other researchers doing work in SL. Some people were interested in hearing about what happened at the meeting but couldn't make it, so I'm posting this summary to the forums.

The meeting was well attended, with about 25 people there. It also lasted an hour an a half before the last people dribbled away, which was twice as long as it was scheduled for, so people were really interested.

We held the meeting because a student who is taking an in-game freshman composition class at Pittsburgh had a conversation with an SLer and then posted it publically to their blog. This got widely reported on big-name blogs like boingboing and terra nova as "anthropologists are secretly doing research in SL and revealing YOUR deepest secrets to the public without telling you." So the meeting was about that.

There were basically three kinds of people there:

1. The professor whose student did the posting and other people involved in the incident. He wanted to explain what had happened and set the record straight.

2. Professional social scientists (like me) and journalists who live in SL. Some of us may eventually do research there, others just hang out. We wanted to let everyone know about professional research ethics - and to make sure /we/ didn't get blamed for what had happened!

3. Concerned SLers -- including a lot of people with major mojo, afaik -- who were, well, concerned.

We more or less figured out the following:

We clearly established that it was college freshman living in Second Life and NOT professional researchers who were responsible for this.

Professional research ethics revolve around two main things: informed consent (we have to tell you what we're doing, so you can decide whether you want to opt out -- and you can /always/ opt out) and confidentiality (we will never spread your information further afield than you want it to go).

The SL Community Standards say something roughly analagous about how uncool it is to post on blogs. Also SL had well developed community standards for what counts as more public (chat) or more private (im).

So we agreed in principle that there's nothing wrong with journalists and anthropologist doing work in SL provided they follow all the rules they follow in R/L. We talked about how they could wear special clothes, hand out note cards explaining who they are, etc. so people will know what they're doing.

We also decided that sometimes people are just people hanging out, so just because someone does research sometimes doesn't mean that when they meet you at a club dancing they are secretly studying you. They are probably just at a club dancing

We decided as a group that the professor should either 1) give his students some sort of mini-course on human rights before turning them loose in SL or 2) make their blogs class-readable only, and not world-readable on the internet. Even though he is not a social scientist and his students are not doing research, they are reporting on what's going on in SL.

There were some weird outstanding issues about the role of the Lindens in all this. Are they using our tax dollars to subsidize classes for outsiders? Is there a way we can give them feedback before they issue research visas for SL? Are students being given special privileges? We talked briefly about that.

Tom Bukowski, a prof of anthropology in California, created a group called 'Digital Cultures' for people interested in doing research in SL, so you should all join that if you're interested.

We all want to talk more about this, and a community is forming around discussing these issues. The meeting was fascianting and no one threw tomatoes, altough they could have.

There will be another meeting -- with Lindens -- on Wednesday at 3pm and we will continue discussing this there:

https://secondlife.com/events/event-view.php?id=19331&date=1099468800

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So in sum it was a very interesting meeting and a lot of people had a very good time. Thanks everyone! Please leave your comments below if you attended -- or even if you didn't.

Rock on all -R

I'm not a social researcher, so I come from a position of ignorance on these issues. However, I find it strange that some people would object to being the object of any such studies.

If in r/l, someone were to sit in a mall, and make note of the behaviors of the shoppers, I would doubt that they have an ethical obligation to inform everyone they observe. Or perhaps the Traffic Engineer who sits at an intersection making note of the cars coming and going would be another similar "social study". This happens all the time in r/l public settings.

If a bunch of Panther freshmen want to study what happens in SL, then I say more power to them. Second Life is just another public point of congregation, and when we're in-world, we have to assume that others can and will observe us.

- Ace

I'm sorry I didn't know about this meeting, or I would come, so I'll try to keep up with them in the future.

In RL, the distinctions between mainstream media and alternative media are blurring, often with unfortunate results. The alternative media often don't adopt the standards upon which establishment media was reared and acquired its reputation and the public trust, i.e. checking sources, having a minimum of two sources on a story, respecting the confidentiality of sources, being careful with attributions of quotes vs. interviews off-the-record, respecting the confidentiality of private correspondence like e-mail, etc. There is increasing celebration of participatory, advocacy media like indymedia.org that rejects anyone's critique that it is biased or politicized in the name of "resistance to the establishment". Blogs have the same stature as regional newspapers at events like the national party conventions. This climate in RL affects what happens in a game like SL, especially in a medium where there is a lot of breathlessness and ecstasy about the medium itself in its pioneer days.

I think if you are a journalist doing an article for the mainstream press with millions of readers, the standards to which you should be held are probably greater -- and the public would expect it -- than if you are writing essentially a diary of your adventures in SL read by a relatively few people in the game.

People holding public events in SL and people making public comments on the SL forums would have to expect that "the press" -- RL mainstream journalists, alternative game media, bloggers, whatever -- are going to cover them. It's professional courtesy to ask permission for photos, etc. especially in a game where people have a great deal at stake for their proprietary concerns about creation, advertisement, etc. On the other hand, you could argue that people who join a game that requires a subscription fee and an avatar name, etc. are entering a private club, and no one has the right to cover anything they do without their permission.

I think there is more consensus than you would think on this type of issue, with a fair amount of tolerance of coverage of in-game events, but where I see furious debates is when people use private conversations or access they've gained by being an in-world character to expose sensational stories, especially economic or morals controversies. We have only to think of the saga of "The Alphaville Herald" (now continuing in the same vein as "The Second Life Herald".

I don't know if you have to wear special clothing per se (what, one of those old-fashioned reporters' hats?) or even pass out cards. You could do something simpler, which is just write on your profile that you are a reporter for a blog or whatever. People will come to associate you with that role assuming they read your profile. But I do think that IM conversations in particular are not fair game for attribution.

There are going to be certain highly scandalous stories where people will reach into IMs and screenshots for evidence. Then the public would have to weigh whether the ethics breached were worth violating the norms of journalism for the sake of a greater cause of exposing some evil -- that's the principle of muckraking journalism, of course.

If you look at this issue from the perspective of journalists or ethnographers, there's another thing to think about: what are you really reporting on or documenting when you cover life in a game like this? It's not real. The characters are concoctions. The actions are fantasies. The conversations are wishes brought to virtuality. If I blog about, say, somebody working as an escort in a club, I haven't harmed the RL-reputation of that person because it is hidden (and the game company should keep it hidden), and for all I know, they are a mild-mannered bank clerk living out their fantasies as an exotic dancer by night in a game. So if I cover the antics of these beings, I've covered a story -- but it's not a real story. So what do I have at the end of the day? I have a collection of people's stories, but are they reliable indicators of how people behave when there are less constrainsts than in RL? Perhaps, but perhaps not, because it is not journalists or scientists who set up the environment with certain controls or rules to do the study, it is a game company, devoted to providing the maximum amount of opportunity for their patrons' entertainment.

I don't have sufficient information to understand why students who were queried by in-game wannabe ethnographers, student or not, could become upset about the reporting of an IM if their RL identity was still not revealed. Of course, there are issues about their in-game reputation and their in-game right to privacy that are legitimate.

too bad i missed this.

first, i would like to point out that professional ethics don't apply to the freshmen directly, they apply to the instructor. unfortunately, the freshman can get in trouble for the instructor's lack of ethical consideration. the consequences for the instructor can very severe. however, research ethics do apply to the freshmen, even if they don't know it.

second, research, as the term is used by human subject committees, ranges from physiological, medical, and psychological studies to ethnographies, from rigorous experiements humans subjects to directed demostrative field excursions to observe human subjects. research isn't only about experiments and studies in this context, it's about trying to get generalizable knowledge in an academic setting with instituational support.

these are research ethics that apply to professionals and non-professionals in the academic setting. they also apply to people who usually don't need to consider these ethics in their normal line of work/study, e.g. english professors and students doing homework.first, a decision of this group is not sufficient to direct the whole body of research and academic institutions, or even one institution. nor can this group speak for the sl residents as a whole to consent to this decision about research. an instructor that follows this decision is being most unwise; he/she should still confirm with his/her institution that this will be sufficient. the conesquences for violating an instituation's ethical policies can be most severe.

again, i reiterate that under human subjects guidelines, the term "research" is much broader that most people think. (how broad does vary from institution to institution, and there is debate about it.)

also, the two part decision may not be sufficient. at the very least the instructor (of this and any other classes) should give a "10 minute speech" on thel sl tos and cs.

also, private records that do not anonymize the subjects/interviewee are problematic under human subject guidlines. so making the records class-readable only is not necessarily sufficient. the problem in this case isn't in making the records "public" the problem is in the fact that there is an audience of any size at all. at uc berkeley even the private records of the researchers must anonymize the subjects (if the observation were done in a naturalistic setting where consent is not possible, as in SL natural observations).

in any case, it is due diligence for the instructor to check with his/her institution's human subjects committee. even if that instructor doesn't think his/her class falls will require review, he/she should confirm instead of assume.

* * *

ethical questions largely come down to consent. can the subject decline to participate? in an observational study, usually no. so more stringent ethical concerns come into, like making the records anonymous.

to this end there should be available to the sl residents:
- an official policy statement regarding online research for each of these institutions.
- the statement of research ethics and conduct for each of these institutions
- human subjects research approval (or exemption) for each of these classes (or equivalent approval or exemption)
- proof that the students of these classes are aware of these guidlines and have agreed to uphold them.
- contact information for the instructors and departments heads and college deans and human subjects committee for each of these classes.

* * *

i do not have a general objection to research in SL. i think it's a great idea. i do have a personal preference for not wanting to be a subject of research, because i'm tired of being a subject.

but in the greater scheme of things, the research (formal and informal) should conform to well established ethical policies for academic institutions. this protects the subjects, the researcher and the instituation, and it blosters the value and validity of the research.

from a research point of view, you don't have an obligaction to inform them, in this case. however, you do have an ethical obligation to make sure they are anonymous, if you do not get their consent.

posting a log with names violates this ethic.

even granting this position, online activities are the creations of real people - people to whom real ethical considerations should be attached.

But we're not talking about the passive observer making notes here. We interact with the world using observation, but there are certain moral standards one has to consider when one decides to make the observations available to the public.
A conversation was had, and then posted on a public blog with names named, without the persons consent.
The nature of the conversation is irrelevant. The point is, at no time did the student in question inform the SLer that the conversation would be posted anywhere.
Therefore, morally (if not legally) the student was required to inform the SLer ahead of time of his intentions to post the conversation.

I wanted to come to this, but had to be at a Halloween thing when it was going on. Just thought I'd throw that in... I've seen this same kind of slag crop up on IRC, so I guess I'm glad I didn't bother coming and wasting my time.

This is an interisting topic.

I just want to point out that it is actualy against the TOS itself to post logs without consent and can result in whatever punishment LL deems nessisary for the case. Edit: My mistake, it is in fact in the CS not the TOS.

Other than that I have nothing of value to add to this really.

Thank you for posting this to keep those who didn't make it up to date.

I managed to catch twenty minutes of the event/discussion before I had to leave. The participants seemed receptive, interested, and accomodating to each others' ideas. Good.

The only procedural suggestion I have is that -- as in many of these sorts of online discussions -- people talked across one another and important points were lost. It was difficult to keep track of the totality of what was going on, and impossible to have the necessary ten seconds to form good ideas or a response. As much as I hate to suggest it -- some sort of control is necessary to keep the interplay of ideas clear and decisive.

In general, social scientists and natural scientists are used to dealing with the protocols of human subjects studies. These protocols almost always require certain standards of preparation and behavior -- they are largely professional ethics that lend credibility to the research and/or the teaching experience, and try to prevent harmful interference with the people being studied. Cultural studies scholars are less used to dealing with these protocols, and I think in the case of Second Life and all online communities, they ought to become familiar with them. From a practical and behavioral point of view, there can be little real difference between interactions with subjects while "teaching" or "researching" in these situation.

I'm familiar with one case where a professor of a discipline closely aligned with both the social sciences and cultural studies has carefully led selected upper-class undergraduates into Second Life -- as a teaching and a research experience. These students were chosen for their intellectual and personal maturity. They underwent a four-week training process that included brief forays inworld under the direct supervision of the instructor. They were tested on their knowledge of Second Life, the ToS and CS, and their "survival skills", before being immersed. Their projects were registered with the campus human subjects studies committee, which exercised appropriate institutional oversight. All identifying traits were excised from any material used about residents of Second Life, and the students identified themselves and what they were doing in cases where they "interviewed" or sought specific information from residents. Weekly discussions were held about special issues that arose when dealing with residents, and in all cases, the decisions tried to favor the rights of the residents. Final projects were required to demonstrate, at length, that the student-researcher had not interefered with the rights of residents.

As I understand things, that's how it's supposed to be done.