My chosen field of study is online education, specifically MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). I want to do an ethnographic study of the MOOC taking experience and this would require working with and observing MOOC participants first hand, in situ. This of course brings up a host of ethical considerations such as informed consent and anonymity, seeking approval from MOOC course providers and obtaining access to public and private user activity content on these platforms.
Another component of the study I had in mind was to form real study groups between MOOC takers in the same geographical location as a way to assess if such group dynamics would increase engagement and potentially improve completion rates of courses. Another important ethical consideration is that even though the researcher's intention is to provide an avenue for collaboration and motivation, the integrity of the course assignments/materials should not be compromised. The way the MOOC is conducted and the experience of the other course takers (that are not study participants) should not be affected.
Esposito's
paper [1] expounds some prudent advice regarding research ethics
in online learning environments. She addresses issues of privacy concerns in
online public settings, the choice between overt and covert research and the
challenges of maintaining informed consent/anonymity. She also talks about how ethical
decisions are an iterative procedure and ties in ethical debates in the ethnographic
tradition neatly with newly emerging research in online settings. The
literature review cited in the paper would undoubtedly be an excellent source
to develop an ethical framework in which to structure my study.
CITATION:
[1] Esposito, A. (2012). "Research ethics in emerging forms of online learning: issues arising from a hypothetical study on a MOOC." Electronic J. e-Learning 10(3): 315-325.
No comments:
Post a Comment