second life human subjects

in light of the the radiks posts with their really poorly thought out questions:

- i want to see an official policy statement regarding online research for each of these institutions.
- i want to see the human subjects research approval for each of these classes
- i want to see a statement of research ethics for each of these institutions
- i want to see a statement or research conduct for each of these institutions
- i want to see proof that the students of these classes are aware of these guidlines and have agreed to uphold them
- i want contact information for the instructors and departments heads and college deans for each of these classes.
- i want to know who to contact if/when a problem occurs.

what i want may not matter much, but i want it. i thought it was worth saying again.

/120/f7/25820/1.html
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ll should talk to the stanford, ucsf, or ucberkeley (http://cphs.berkeley.edu:7006/) human subjects committees

more useful urls:
http://cphs.berkeley.edu/content/guidelines.htm#part2
http://cphs.berkeley.edu/content/faq.htm

I agree! I am absolutely fucking fed up to the back teeth of these little stoodents wandering into our world and our forum and using it for their own research. Whatever happened to the library, to searching the internet, to getting out there and finding things for yourself rather than having it handed to you on a plate?

I am NOT a subject, I'm an individual, and I want to be treated as one - I don't want to be treated as something that's there to be constantly analysed.

Analyse this, Radiks - then get out and do some proper work.

Don't sodding send those stoodents to MY library missy!!!!

I have enough here of my own to deal wif

Are Linden making money from having these utter no-marks wandering around asking vacuous and poorly thought-out questions to us all? I come here for fun, usually quite late at night - and find some bloody student at the American equivalent of East London Uni blathering on at me about whether my pink hair is a reflection of my true self, or something!

Stoodents OUT of SL!

Aren't you a bloody stoodent your holy dorkness?

I quite agree. Not that they should be more accountable, mind. Just that they should fuck off altogether.

Most of them seem to have made up their minds what they think about SL without having really experienced it or listening to the responses to their endless streams of questions anyway, so I don't know why they bother, really.

Any Radiks coming to bother me at mine will be bounced out of the sim without warning. I am not someones fucking homework.

I am indeed. But I do my research properly!

*types "german electoral system" into Wikipedia*

Hang on.... are ALL Radiks students??

and Kris, can't you be my homework, I know what I used to get upto while I was sposed to be studying

Yep all of 'em.

Yes Willow. They are.

Bah.. I am too busy quilting to take much notice of what the hell is happening anymore!!!

Well, to be technically fair, Professor Radiks is a... Professor.

SO YOU'RE DAMN WRONG!!!

MUHAHAAHA.........

sorry i'm feelin' a lil hostile

kthxbye!1111

I want to study Torley... she's dreaammyyy

LL isnt making money from this (Robin stated this originally) other than for the accounts themselves. As for the students themselves, I personally have no problem - It's an interesting concept, and god knows I'd love to be able to waste lab time in SL legitimately.

-Adam

I dont have anything against students coming to second life. i just think that everything they have asked on this forum so far has been... uh, how do i put this, annoyingly typical.

Maybe they should use SL as any ordinary resident. I think they will learn far more than asking questions on the forums. Go and experience it you Radicks.

Alexa

I could have sworn I saw something on the SL website or Wiki or something concerning LL's official stance on research in SL.

That said, I think

A) People who want to see research ethics crap for each and every single class that wanders in here are paranoid.
B) People who think that libraries and encyclopedias are "good enough" when it comes to gathering information on a subject should be shot for being ignorant.
C) Radiks who post to the forums asking questions that are not intended to compare the realities of SL with the fantasies of the forum should be failed.

Deja vu.....this thread was done before with the last class of students. Some will understand Sl and some won't ....either way they won't be here long enough to even consider being mad about.

As a community we don't have a problem with newbies asking questions and basically thats what they are. If you don't want to deal with it ...well... you know what their last name is so you can avoid them in world and not answer them here.


There aren't secret files being writtrn up about you and they aren't abducting avatars and doing scientific research on them....although I did offer Alby up for a frontal lobotomy.

Personaly I have no issue with the general concept of the Radiks users. I welcome any research work being done on Virtual Worlds, as they can only advance the topic.

I am also happy to be able to identify the researchers. I'd rather know when I am being researched, rather then be observed in secret.

I DO have a problem with these students however... and the problem is what Kris have stated: Their ideas on SecondLife appear to be allready formed. They do not seem to be actually using the response that they gather from us. They have made up their minds, and they are going to stick to it. That is NOT proper research.

I was also appaled by the questions themselves - the questions they ask are irritating since they show zero knowledge on the topic.

It is true that you can never learn everything from the library and books, but when you come to talk with people in the field, you -are- expected to get the background from documents and books. Their questions indicate zero preperation. And if they had one, it is very lacking. Some of their questions, especialy the one about "why are parts of SecondLife damage enabled and part are not" is bordering at complete lazyness and improper research.

It also appears that they are not using their most valueable and accessible research resource: The lindens themselves.

I am absolutly positive that Philip, Robin, Cory, and pretty much all of the Linden gang will most likely be very happy to sit and have a long chat with these students: telling them about the background of SecondLife, their philisophy for making and running a virutal world, the incentives that made Philip start it all in the first place (his profile say "Blame it all on me.".. Well, I do! ), etc' etc'. The linden blogs alone could shed enough insight and provide enuogh questions research material for a whole good paper. Did they use any of these resources? We do not know. But we can guess. And my guess is no.

I hope that their project papers are going to include a section where they explain how they felt and what they thought about Virtual Worlds, and what they feel now that their work is coming to close. Maybe that will encourage them to reconcider and think about some of their views.

I'm all about learning. I'm all about helping students learn.

Why is it so bad for someone to ask you questions about how you play the game? Do you have something nefarious to hide? Goat porn in your virtual closet? What?

I applaud the universities coming here. Some will stay, hopefully.

LF

GAME???

I thought Second Life was a THINGIE. *blush*

I feel it's indeed important to do background research and go through the New World Notes archives and such -- and dig through the old Forum threads -- before proceeding further. This does not apply exclusively to university students, either.

That being said, apart from on here, inworld, I have talked to several of the Radiks. They were very nice to me but I am still waiting to hear back from LeoLambert. ^_^

once again we're asking ll to push away people trying to use, understand, and expose this technology in order to protect the "community."

maybe they do need a research policy that's more stringent than the cs and tos. or perhaps they can simply add a clause to the cs. but we need this kind of exposure for the software to advance beyond game status. why am i wasting my time here. nm.

It's not (at least not as far as I'm concerned), but there is a difference between asking a few questions and using someone as a research subject. The line is definitely a little fuzzy, but in general if you are actually being used as a research subject the researcher has to have your informed consent. What constitutes being a research subject varies from institution to institution and from field to field, but in general if anything about you or anything you do or say is used as data in a study, by most standards you are a research subject.

Now, you might say, who cares if someone asks me some questions and publishes my answers to them somewhere, or uses something about me as data in some paper for a class or a paper in an obscure academic journal? Well, it's no problem if you give your consent. It's a serious problem if you don't, and this isn't my just my own opinion, it's the opinion of the research community as a whole. In the past (particularly in the 1960s and 1970s) a lot of really unethical research was carried out by researchers focused more on results than on the well being of their human subjects. Two particularly good (i.e., bad) examples are the Standford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment which were very interesting but also very emotionally damaging to their subjects. It was in response to problems like this that research organizations developed very strict human subjects guidelines to prevent future abuses.

So I can certainly understand the concern of SL residents in this matter, but I suspect what we have here on the forums are just some lazy students who want to get us to do their homework for them. Maybe someone should IM Professor Radiks and ask if all these students are supposed to be asking their homework questions here.

On the other hand, I believe there may be a very real instance of research ethics violations in the case of the Second Life Herald, whose "editor", Urizenus Sklar, is Professor Peter Ludlow of the University of Michigan. While most of Ludlow's publications are on arcane aspects of philosophy and linguistics, he has published a few things on online societies and has stated that he has a professional interest in his work on the Herald. When it was the Alphaville Herald, Ludlow had the assistance of a University of Michigan graduate student in running it, according to this article in Salon. Much of the material in the Herald seems to be designed to provoke its readers, and a topic such as "The semantics and pragmatics of arguments in virtual worlds" would be right up Ludlow's alley.

The Unversity of Michigan's Institutional Review Board is responsible for ethics compliance by U of M researchers.


Linden Lab's research policy for SL is only part of the picture here. What also matters, as I've explained, are the researchers' institutions' own research ethics polcies.

i don't mind having kids come in and do research but there should really be a Linden announcement up front so i know when someone comes along with a giant magnifying glass they're doing research and not being a jerk.

and i agree with (i think) Eggy about it being annoying. attention students! please don't get on the forums and say "i've been here for 2 hours. please answer my totally loaded question so i can prove the conclusion i've already reached. kthx." it's really obvious and it doesn't impress.

Mmmm..college girls

Actually, I have no problem at all with them doing research. I have always thought SL would make a great education tool, and I like seeing people using it for research or whatever. I'll be a lab rat, as long as it doesn't take away my enjoyment of SL.