Transparency in Research

 This week we talked with Module Two's about principles around ethics when conducting research studies. One word I used a lot in this session was that of Transparency. In this context I refer to allowing people to see a clear process of what happens from the moment they give you data through a survey or interview or other method up to writing your final investigation/inquiry/report. 

Overtime we have seen personal data privacy grow as a topic of greater importance. The advent of social media has started us rightly asking questions about what kinds of information we are handing over to others and how is it being used. We have seen a wide range of scandals where we have seen huge social media companies sell our data to companies to market products. Many thoughts social media was built for positive social change, allowing us to connect across borders, but this trust has been breached and led many to question whether really it was all a model for data mining and selling data as a business model. 

These challenges in something so close to many of our lives, social media, have led to a general distrust in data collection. This makes it more important to ensure when doing data collection as a researcher that you can engender trust through openness and transparency. 

Think about your process of data collection and how it goes from you interview or survey and ends up in your final piece of work. Maybe even draw a process chart of the stages you go through from transcription to coding to re-contextualising in themes. Look at the process and think 'Am I doing anything I need to hide form my participants?' if you are you need to change this. You could also share a process chart as part of your participants information sheet.