My research question could involve interview with participants in DIY online communities. For example, “to what extent has online DIY participation influenced your income and expenditures; please provide specific examples of your use of services/goods that have been impacted”. Or more quantitatively, I could attempt to track spending change over a period of time for new users. If I wanted to avoid working with research participants, I could try to extrapolate some of that information using Statistics Canada labour force data mashed up with other business/economic data. In other words, there could be ways to get around human participant research to avoid making an application to the Ethics Review Board.
The ethical dimension of my work is complex. I would argue that the research question
itself is embedded with a kind of ethics or worldview that reflects value in
community work; otherwise, it would be not a meritorious area of study. If the information created by my research is
generated with the support/participation of DIY online communities, then
ethically that knowledge should flow back to them for their own value.
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