second life human subjects

That student was wrong.

Now that the forums are located in a dedicated members only section of the web site, where we have to log in, it cannot be considered public domain. We pay for membership to enter, we pay for the right to post and to read posts, and comments made in the forum are not open to the general public.

It's member's only. (Where is my jacket?)

Agreed, katykiwi. I told him as much earlier today. His attitude struck me as being unfortunate, objectionable and misinformed.

In RL, I am a doctoral student in an educational research program. (No, I am not conducting any research in SL at this time, and have not in the past, and don't have any planned at the moment.)

Last term I took a class in qualitative research methods. We conducted interviews of students (in RL) and wrote up our results in papers to be seen only by the professor. We had to obtain Informed Consent from each of our participants, but did not have to present the project to the ethics committee. The professor had specifically obtained an exemption from the Research Ethics committee for this project for all iterations of the course, because the project description didn't change from term to term, so the committee was able to give a blanket review and approval for the project in any term.

Of course, this was a graduate class in a specifically research-oriented program, and all the students involved were likely to be in the position of needing to pass human subjects/research ethics review boards in the future, so we did cover that process. We just knew we wouldn't have time to individually go through the process within the term.

Regarding the Radiks, probably their professor should have run the whole project past their ethics board. Maybe he/she did. I gotta tell you, passing the ethics board doesn't stop someone from asking inane questions. But as long as they aren't planning on publishing the results anywhere, the requirements, even from an ethics board, are likely to be slim, restricted to not doing harm to the participants.

Hey, who's up for a study of the behavior of students who are supposed to be studying virtual worlds and their denziens? I can probably get such a study past my institution's ethics board, seeing as how I'm supposed to be researching education. (But if some of you want to actively experiment on the students, that's likely to be harder to get past.)

Neko

What sort of experiments? Will they involve disection?

Ok--

Since some of you have issues with the Radiks family, why not come see us TODAY?

I (and probably some others) will be in world from 5-6pm EST. So, come on in and ask us ANYTHING you want about what we are doing and why we are here!

This way we can clear the air on the whole issue. The flaming posts in these forums are getting a little out of control.

So, come on in and say hi!

Our campus is located in ALICE. It has a great big fence around it...kinda hard to miss. Near the river. I would post the coordinates, but Im not at my SL computer right now.

OR drop me (tluskie radiks) an IM. Or if you run in to any other Radiks, Im sure they would love to chat.

See you there.

(PS - Nothing will be posted or taken out of SL without your knowledge)

Hm... they could... I missed the alien abductions last summer, but it sounds like it might be time for someone to rev up the UFO again...

Radiks, no offense, I'm sure many of you are intelligent, thoughtful interviewers. It's always the bumbling missteps that get remembered, unfortunately.

Neko

Did I see a Linden post that there are no groups currently doing research in SL ?

In view of the existence of the Radiks, this means he is relying on how he defines research. I dont care about such a subtle definition. I want to know about any individual or group of people present in SL in the course of their work attached to an institution of learning, for purposes of observing, analysing and/or recording what happens here.

The Radiks do that dont they ?

I want to know NOW the identities of any others doing the same thing now, in case I meet one tomorrow.

Radiks plus who?

And I want everyone who doesnt know to have it pointed out to them, so that they know too.

I also want to see the institution of the sort of transparent approvals and safeguards being requested elsewhere, but put all that aside for now.

Can someone please tell me - WHO ELSE IS THERE ? Or have I missed it somewhere in all thes fragmenting threads?

WHO ELSE IS THERE ??????

Currently the Radiks are the only student group in SL. They are not researchers, they aren't going to quote you or use any information about you in any way you don't agree with. They're watching movies like The Matrix, learning about online communities and collaborative communication (which includes blogs and wikis, in addition to SL), and generally thinking about what it means to be human in a digital world.

There are three other classes planning to be in SL this semester.

First is a small group of post graduate architecture students from UC Berkeley (last name Bear). They will be focused on building in SL. They should be starting this week.

Second is a group of 18 from the University of Illinois (last name Walkabout). Again, none of them will be writing research papers, and Second Life is only one of several online experiences they're involved with. They will also be starting this week.

Finally, there's a group from the University of Nevada Reno which is studying digital media. I don't have a last name or a start date for them yet. Their interest is in " a space for creative, experimental art and installation".

Why are you so paranoid about people coming in world to learn?

Ohh, I wanna be a part of that class.

LF

What is wrong with you people? The people doing the class aren't spying on you, testing you, or anything like that. If your afriad that they will conclude something negative then don't be so negative. All the students are very polliet, and will ask your permission for information, and give you details about what they are going to do with the infomoration, at which point you agree or disagree. You really need to calm down and stop looking for things to be outraged over. Everyday I come on these forums, I see the same people being outraged by some random little thing, and how its all the lindens fault that you are unhappy.

I have no problem with students coming in world, observing, and asking questions on the forums. I don't for the life of me understand why people have an issue with it. How is it any different than a regualr SL resident making observations and blogging about them? I wish I could have taken such a cool class when I was in college!

Say, do you people know how many times you're being recorded as you walk down the street?

just out of curiosity, is this the general consensus? these forums are private, and as such, any information posted here should stay here? say, not be posted to a public blog?

if that is the case, why are blogs such as Clickable Culture allowed to do this by copy-pasting text right out of the forums and into their public blog? just because they are mad at Radiks or LL, i don't think this gives them the right to take information from the forums and post it publicly..
pot.kettle.black..?

from /120/e6/33622/1.html

in general usage the word "researcher" may or may not apply; but under a more technical usage in academia, i think it does. regardless, under these circumstances research ethics would apply.

note, i'm not saying that anything unethical is happening. but there are clear signs that intentions and policies aren't entirely clear in this area.. and they should be as clear as possible.

further, ll cannot prevent research in sl that is not authorized by ll. there simply isn't a mechanism that would work. however, those researchers who do not abide by sl policies are mostly likely violating research ethics, and in general their research will not be well regarded.

this is important to me for a few reasons:

first, i do not wish to be part of anyone's research. i do not wish to be quoted or cited or otherwise mentioned in anyone's academic or professional research, thesis, project or other inquiry. this is my personal stance on things, and as a paying customer, i think it fair to make that clear to ll. as a member of the forums and proponent of free speech, i will speak about what matters to me.

second, as a consumer of various kinds of research, i know what kind of crap comes out of academia when protocols and ethics are not followed. if it's about sl, i don't want to see any crap that comes from shoddy methods. and in general, i don't want to see any more academically inadequate papers.

go bears!

one the one hand, i think it's silly and obstructing to list everyone person or group that is doing any kind of research, education related exercise, or other similar activity. some research can be done ethically without telling everyone in the environment.

on the other hand, in the case of undergraduate students and even graduates or phds who come from fields without rigorous research methods (e.g english departments or communications) as compared to those with rigorous researc methods (e.g. anthropology, linguistics, psychology), it is a good thing for ll to vet their planned activities, and to let sl resident know what's up. i mean, when a bunch of people with the same last name start asking somewhat naive and innante questions, it becomes obvious that sl is being used as someone's subject pool or informant pool. and since sl is obviously helping these students establish their presence (ala same last names), then it may behoove ll to announce this information (though at this time i haven't decided). however, i think ll needs to keep track of these things should harm occur (unintended or not); people who could be harmed will need a means of redress.

Thanks to Robin for the surnames. Minimal information, but it does give us the power to choose. Lets hope its kept updated and visible, both in forum, in world, and on the website.

I met a few Radiks' in game; they were pleasant and seemed to be generally interested in the dynamics of SL.

My undergradutate studies were in behavioral ecology. Like in all social sciences, the data are typically quite "messy" and as Stoneself mentioned, bad practice yields bad results in a field that is both plangent (humans are fascinating to all) and quite young.

I still maintain that sending students - even undergraduates - off to do social research without teaching appropriate field method is a disservice to those students. When I saw the spate of "please do my homework for me posts" then I did raise the question.

Informed consent is a dreadfully important part of human subjects research, even when there is no conceivable harm. I knew a graduate student who was asking people to sort color tiles into groups for a cognition study. The data were anonymous and I'm hard pressed to come up with a way in which sorting colors could be harmful or misused. Nevertheless, he did obtain consent because that's just how it is done.

Reporters typically delcare themselves as such - which I think may be a matter of professional ethics. Researchers do the same for the same reasons. If you are going to teach potential social scientists, then do it properly. If you think "but they are just undergraduates" then it seems that you should also believe that maybe Einstein, Newton, and Maxwell ought be saved for the doctoral candidates.

There are risks to bad social science. Margaret Mead had adduced some specious notions of human behavior that had informed public policy for the better part of a century. Had she been as good an anthropologist as she was a popular writer, there would not be nearly as much "received truth" to be inexorably chipped away. Does research in SL pose such risks? Insofar as SL is a social playground of greater depth than anything that has preceeded it, there is the potential for bad research to generate bad conceptions. If you are going to practice social research than please use the best of the clumsy tools we have at our disposal.

I don't think that is too much to ask.

P.S. I don't think this a duty incumbent on Linden Lab to enforce; this was targeted more at instructors mining this field. I do however appreciate the efforts that LL has taken toward vetting the projects and informing the community. Hell, I've been "studying" the dynamics of SL but am not publishing or being formal, it's just sort of something I reflexively do (as do most people, trained or not). My experiences, for the curious, really haven't shown me much different than RL has shown me, and there are shelfulls of people better qualified and way better at exposition than I.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda...


In a number of instances, if a researcher:

COULD have asked
SHOULD have asked
but would not have asked, even given the opportunity and the obligation to do so

that may just say more about the researcher as human being than their people of interest.

Curious, isn't it?

I'd just like to say that of the three "guinea pigs" I interviewed, I asked explicit permission to interview, before I even asked a question. I hope I made it perfectly clear that no information would be used without their consent. My paper was one of the best out of the class, and Prof. Radiks came back to me to get permission to use parts of the interviews in Hamlet Linden's New World Notes. I IMed all the interviewees to get permission, and all three were quite happy to have their interviews used in such a manner.

Though I cannot speak for anyone else in the class, I guarantee that we were explicitly told of the consequences of not conducting our interviews in a legal manner. I'm sure most, if not all, of the class asked permission first.

Also, I assure you that if you were not explicitly asked to be interviewed, NONE of your comments or chats or WHATEVER were used.

You were not guinea pigs. If you participated in an interview, you were a VOLUNTEER. If you are so concerned about your privacy, don't participate in the interview.

And FYI I know for a fact there will be other classes that will participate in Second Life in the future-- and not just with my college.

1) the concern over research is more general than anything the radiks did or did not do. it also includes people who have not provided the opportunity to opt out. a bit of history can be found at: /120/f7/25820/1.html
2) it's not simply a matter of privacy - the concerns range from ethics to good methodology to customer service. reducing it down to one thing like that is just bad rhetoric.
3) your attitude wrt to good methodoly sucks. which is another reason undergradutes doing research or other educational activities in "public" need monitoring. trying to get information from a population that you are antagonizing will be biased. and your analysis of said data while being antagonizing (or antagonized) will be suspect.
4) your attitude wrt the concerns of some sl residents also sucks. the desires and concerns of people who do not wish to deal with students asking inane questions signify. though these desires and concerns may have no affect they do signify. dismissing them so lightly is bad form for a researcher. again, this kind of attitude does not bear well on the kind analysis you might produce wrt to sl.

you know what? most of us with concerns know this, too. most of us knew even before you were so kind as to inform us.

it is this very fact which makes us air our concerns now; we hope that our concerns can be addressed in some productive fashion - before any further or future problems can occur. and it does appear that these concerns are being addressed.

My bad. I thought this was still about the Radiks.

But it baffles me-- Why would you not support increasing the general knowledge of and about Second Life?

Furthermore, if a second grader wanted to interview me for class, I would gladly participate, regardless of whether the questions were inane. If you assume we are portraying your community negatively before hearing what we have to say, it makes me think you need to readjust your own opinion of Second Life. Projection? Maybe.

Prof. Radiks has given us the opportunity to continue with Second Life. If I can ever get my high-speed internet to work, I am strongly considering making the (albeit discounted) monthly sacrifice. As a role-player with friends who also role-play, I cannot conceive of how our participation would negatively affect your experience.

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Yawn.

And whats to stop them from doing it individually without notification? Oh nothing. Maybe be banned at the absolute far end scenario. From previous posters who have been banned and sl "news" sites we can see how effective that is.

This isn't like its a reflection on the real life you-- if you give out your real name, etc, it would be a different story, however that's entirely your choice. If you don't want things associated with you in real life don't give that information out and keep your online life seperate.

Save the drama. Psych students study people all over the place, so do statistics students-- generally with no consent. Yet, you don't hear about it as often because they don't bother to tell you.