Notes from Guide for Online Researchers (AoIR, 2002):

To foster my own sense of phronesis (decision to research the right thing, for the right reason and in the right way, at the right time)

Where does the inter/action, communication, etc. under study take place?

What ethical expectations are established by the venue?

E.g. Is there a posted site policy that establishes specific expectations, e.g. A statement notifying users that the site is public, the possible technical limits to privacy in specific areas or domains, etc

E.g. Is there a statement affiliated with the venue indicating whether discussion, postings, etc., are ephemeral, logged for a specific time, and/or archived in a private and/or publicly-accessible location such as a website?

E.g. Are there mechanisms that users may choose to employ to indicate that their exchanges should be regarded as private - e.g. 'moving to a private chatroom, using specific encryption software, etc.? - to indicate their desire to have their exchanges kept private?

#ELTchat takes place in Twitter, an information network that connects the user to the latest information and other users by means of 140-character messages, the so-called tweets. More about Twitter and their mission can be found on their About page. The Terms and Privacy pages of Twitter clearly indicate that the site and its content are public and so is most of the information a user provides (this refers to profile info, if submitted, tweets, favourited tweets, retweets, others the user follows). The user is informed about it when signing up for an account and the links to the terms and conditions are easily accessible from the Twitter home page. According to the site blurb,  the information is archived and easily searchable.

However, in reality the tweets have an expiry date on them. They might be still visible in an individual's Twitter stream but their searchability decreases with time.  As ReadWriteWeb  (August 2009) website explains, they are subject to dynamic selective processes when featuring in the hashtag stream and so the tweets are searchable for about 1.5 weeks, possibly less as the number of tweets in the stream grows. This could be a potential problem as it renders the #eltchat ephemeral. From an ethical point of view the situation is salvaged by the fact that the participants, at least those who attend the chat regularly, are aware of the tweets being backed up right after the chat.

The user might use direct messages for more private conversations or as a back channel but the primary mode of interaction on Twitter and so #ELTchat is public.

The other related venues such as the blog, the facebook page and the wiki are also publicly accessible. 

Content is provided by the chat moderators and sometimes authored by participants - in that case upon clearing the copyright, the moderator copies and pastes it onto the blog/wiki and links it to the original site (the participant's blog).

Content be viewed and read by anybody. Comments left by readers might be subject to moderation (made clear on the blog). 

Since Twitter works on the premise of full openness and publicity, there is less obligation to protect individual privacy and seek consent from individual participants of #ELTchat, particularly that the participation varies from session to session, there is no registration or membership as such. However, I have asked one of the moderators for consent and he was to take the request further to the rest of #ELTchat team who unanimously agreed. The only tweets that have been harvested for the display are the ones that feature in the transcript. Some of the information has been taken from participants' blogs. Although good ethical practice would require the researcher to ask for consent, a less strict approach has been assumed considering the fact that the blogs also belong to a public sphere.

ONE BROAD CONSIDERATION: the greater the acknowledged publicity of the venue, the less obligation there may be to protect individual privacy, confidentiality, right to informed consent, etc.

Who are the subects posters / authors / creators of the material and/or inter/actions under study?

Are any of them children and/or minors?

The moderators and participants are ELT professionals and since the chat covers professional issues, they perform in their professional capacity. Hence, their vulnerability is much lower than if they were participating as private persons. Twitter does not require the users to display their real names, they are allowed to use nicks and these are fully public. The moderators, although they might be using handles on Twitter, are known by their names as these are revealed on the public wiki or blog. The transcripts of the weekly sessions, including participants Twitter usernames are made public on the wiki.

A BROAD CONSIDERATION: the greater the vulnerability of the author/subject - the greater the obligation of the researcher to protect the author/subject

Informed consent: specific considerations

Timing: ideally, protecting human subjects' rights to privacy, confidentiality, autonomy, and informed consent means approaching subjects at the very beginning of research to ask for consent - sometimes as the goals of the research shift and so new questions emerge, it is not only about determining whether to ask for consent but also when

Medium: which medium best protects both the subject and their project

Addresses: In studying groups with a high turnover rate is obtaining permission from the moderator/facilitator/list owner sufficient?

How material is to be used?

Will the material be referred to by direct quotation or paraphrased?

Will the material be attributed to a specified person? Referred to by his/her real name? Pseudonym? Double-pseudonym?

What are the initial ethical expectations/assumptions of the authors/subjects being studied?

E.g. Do participants in this environment assume/believe that their communication is private?

E.g. Are participants in this environment best understood as 'subjects' or as authors whose texts/artifacts are intended as public?

The participants are (should be) fully aware that the nature of the chat is fully public, accessible to everyone, including people not interested in the topic. They should also know that the conversation is not ephemeral but archived and to an extent searchable. They should also know that the information they provided is linked to their name and profile and can be easily found, re-broadcast and used by third parties. In fact, at least experienced participants know that the discussion is being 'recorded' - one of the chat features is to collect the transcript after the session and store it on the wiki for a future reference. Also, the script is analysed for the sake of producing a summary in which particular participants are referred to by name.

What ethically significant risks does the research entail for the subject(s)?

Form/content distinction: If the content of a subject's communication were to become known beyond the confines of the venue being studied - would harm likely result?

The shift of focus away from content to form may reduce the risk to the subject.

The content of the communication is already being made available on other sites such as aforementioned blog and wiki in form of the transcript of the discussion (including names/nicknames of the participants) and summaries of the discussion (where names/nicknames are also often referred to). 

Since the medium is volatile and restrictive in terms of the length of the message, abbreviations and textspeak are commonly used and spelling/grammar mistakes are possible (potentially harmful, considering the nature of the profession of the participants). Although the researcher plans to refer to individual tweets, she will avoid highlighting tweets that might be problematic in regard to their accuracy.

Some information has been gathered by means of a short, fully anonymous and voluntary survey, a link to which was posted on Twitter with the ELTchat hashtag. 17 responses were considered as additional information for the ethnography.

What benefits might be gained from the research?

The status of real-time chatrooms is ambiguous. On the one hand, one can argue that they are

like a public square. It is considered ethical to record activities in a public place without consent,

provided that individuals are not identifiable (Eysenbach & Till, 2001). In this view, we would

be justified to simply record conversations and not tell anyone that this was taking place. On the

other hand, one can argue that chatroom conversations are normally ephemeral. Participants

have a reasonable expectation that they are not being recorded without their freely given

informed consent. Under this stricter interpretation, we would need consent from any person

whom we wish to record. Additionally, if the process of requesting that consent proved too

intrusive, we would need to abandon the research (Department of Health, 1979).