Ethical guidelines for CABWEB

What is CABWEB?

The CAB (Collaboration Across Borders) project portal CABWEB (the portal is implemented on the Open Source Software package Moodle)  hosts tutor and student networks and provides spaces for collaborative activities.  The tutor and student network are public spaces, where anyone can self-enrol and participate in online discussions, and guests can view content, but not post messages.  The openness of a collaboration space (used for online collaboration between groups of students) is determined by the tutor(s) who manage those spaces.  Where the tutor has restricted access to the space we regard these as private spaces, otherwise they are public spaces like the networks.  The CAB project is funded under Socrates-Minerva, with partners from United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, is undertaking research into the pedagogical, organisational and cultural aspects of international online student collaboration.

Ethical Guidelines

We take our ethical responsibilities seriously, developing policies to deal with ethical issues as our networks grow.  We have an explicit statement of our CABWEB Ethos,  that will be developed in consultation with CABWEB members – students and tutors. 

We expect anyone conducting research or evaluation on the CABWEB portal to adhere to the following principles:

1. Clarify the nature and purpose of the research/evaluation.  The research objectives should be stated clearly to the participants in the network or space in which the research is being done, and reported to the CABWEB administrator.
2. Confidentiality – all data should be held securely and the confidentiality of individuals be maintained.
3. Anonymity – Researchers should seek to maintain the anonymity of the research subjects in their publications. Such publications should be reported to the CABWEB administrator for listing on the CAB web site.
4. Obtain informed consent from research subjects.
5. At CABWEB, we are committed to expanding both the opportunities for international online student collaboration and knowledge about how this can best be achieved.

Monitoring Performance

The CABWEB portal is subject to continuous revision and improvement, informed by feedback from users and external evaluators.  We actively welcome your feedback via email to CABWEB administrator, as well as conducting specific evaluation exercises with groups of users.

We shall use the logs recorded automatically by Moodle software to gain a better understanding of how people used the CABWEB portal, but will only publish anonymised usage data.

Online Discussion

As stated in our Ethos Statement, we intend that those communicating on the CABWEB forums and chat spaces can expect and will extend tolerance to each other.  We seek to implement this by publishing discussion guidelines, that include a process for resolving any problems. If you find that this process is not working, please let us know.

Research

We have two approaches to gaining consent from research subjects according to whether the research data is gathered in a public or a private space.

In a public space where participation is voluntary, we expect that participation indicates that consent is given to postings being used as research data, and we promise to participants that we will abide by the principles above.  Participants can ask the CABWEB administrator, to withdraw specific contributions.  Participants completing the Standard voluntary CABWEB questionnaire at http://www.isi.salford.ac.uk/staff/fb/CABQuest/Cabintro.htm give their consent as part of the questionnaire completion.  Publications from the research will be listed and published either at http://www.cabweb.net or at http://moodle.cabweb.net unless a copyright agreement forbids this.

Tutors conducting research in a private space such as a closed collaboration space (or where students are required to participate as part of their course requirements) are responsible for the research ethics.  We do require them to publish research objectives and to obtain formal informed consent  from participants, i.e. to comply with the principles above.

Ethos of Collaboration Across Borders Online Space

“Tolerance is harmony in difference”

As students and learning professionals, we come together on the CAB portal to pursue our shared interests in collaborative learning online. Our ethos will always be under development, reflecting the current membership of CAB, but is broadly based on the UNESCO Principles of Tolerance, http://www.unesco.org/tolerance/declaeng.htm . These principles show tolerance as an active attitude prompted by recognition of universal human rights and the fundamental freedoms of others. We expect participants not to deceive, defame, or harass others, and to show respect to all.

We shall explore the use of communication media to facilitate open dialogue that can shape attitudes of openness, mutual listening and solidarity, within a minimal governance, that promotes tolerance and harmony.

To achieve these aims, we shall:

· Discuss and review our ethos statement and governance processes in action, on a regular basis

· Organise public events on the Higher Education Learning Professionals and Student Networks that promote open dialogue

· Conduct research into the social and technical aspects of online collaboration in education.

Version 1 of this living document. We welcome your input to regular discussions will be held in the HELP network (for tutors) and in the Student network. Please join us and help to develop an ethos that has meaning internationally.

Online Discussion Guidelines

The Collaboration Across Borders (CAB) project (http://www.cabweb.net ) provides these guidelines to promote enjoyable online discussions that encourage learning within a community based on mutual respect.  Online discussions enable communication independent of time and place, support from peers and tutor as well as the construction and sharing of knowledge but participants may need to think more carefully about how they express themselves, particularly where the communication is text-based..  In the absence of additional cues - body language, facial expression and vocal intonation - misunderstanding and offence can occur more easily.  You may have experienced these problems with email. 

Anyone who posts to this discussion board takes full responsibility for the content of their message.  The moderator reserves the right to remove postings or ban participants that may, in their judgment, break the general rules below but hope that this does not become necessary.  Anyone complying with the following General Rules is unlikely to run into problems (Johnson, 1997).

Additional Guidelines

Your tutor will probably give you additional guidance on collaboration.

If problems occur:

Any student who experiences a problem in online discussion should report it to your tutor, in the first instance.  Problems that remain unresolved should be reported to Elena Zaitseva, the CAB administrator.

We also welcome feedback on these guidelines.

Informed Consent Form explains the purpose and nature of the research where users' data (discussion transcrpts) will be involved, and asks for users' permission to use the data. Below is a template for the Informed Consent Form.

CAB Informed Consent Form (to be customised)

Participation Information and Consent Form for Research in Private Collaboration Spaces

1. Title of Research:

Please give title that specifies particular research for which you are obtaining consent

(Default) International online student collaboration

2. Researchers

Name, email, institution

Name, email, institution

E.Zaitseva, E.Zaitseva@salford.ac.uk, University of Salford

3. Research Objectives:
   • Study the pedagogical, organisational and cultural aspects of international online student collaboration
   • Objectives – clearly stated

4. Research Strategy:

Students and tutors in this collaboration space are research subjects. Discussion data, focus groups and interview data (add any others used) will be collected and analysed using quantitative and qualitative techniques whilst maintaining the confidentiality of the subject.

Strategy should describe who are subjects, and how data is collected and analysed.

5. Ethical Approval:

Statement of how consent is obtained, how subjects are kept informed of any changes to the research, contact details of researcher for questions, etc.

For research into pedagogical, organisational and cultural aspects of international online student collaboration, a link to research results (or reference to publication) will be posted either on http://moodle.cabweb.net or on http://www.cabweb.net

6. Confidentiality / Anonymity:

Researchers undertake hold data securely and confidentially, and will strive to maintain the anonymity of subjects. [1]

7. Consent:

Based on the above information, if you wish to participate in this study indicate by signing below. (To indicate consent electronically, fill and send back questionnaire to the researcher).

…………………………………. …………….

Signature of Respondent Date

8. Revocation of Consent:

If you wish to withdraw your consent to participate in the above research, indicate by signing below. (To withdraw consent electronically, send back informed consent form).

…………………………………. …………….

Signature of Respondent Date

9. Researcher’s verification:

I certify that I have carefully explained the purpose and nature of this research on the participation information and consent form. By providing my email address, I have provided the opportunity for the respondent to discuss the research project with me in detail.

…………………………………….. …………….

Elena Zaitseva 6 January 2005

Signature of Researcher Date

[1] It is always possible that postings in an public forum may be found using an Internet search engine.

Student Topic Discussion Forum is where topic discussion is carried among students. Dedicated threads to individual or groups will be organised. Students from corresponding institution can response to any of threads or to those allocated to them by their tutor.

Sometimes more than one student topic discussion forum will be set when a large number of students are involved.