Just talked to Steve Godwin about doing participant observation on a second-year astronomy course.

He had a pretty laid-back approach to the ethics of this. I suspect this is because the Mellon Project proposal went to the Student Research Project Panel as a whole, and specific elements of it weren’t explored in great detail.

Steve suggests an informal meeting with the course team, being clear about aims and objectives and offereing to share the results of the research with them.

He observed how he did some activities, making a sound recording of his thoughts while he worked through them. He’s also looked at the ratio of posters to people on the course to readers, and considers that this sort of surface data can be accessed ethically as there is no potential for harm.

He posted a request for people to interview on the course conference, and carried out seven half-hour interviews which were informed by his experiences of the course.

Might be worth interviewing Steve about his experiences of identity online, as he specifically mentioned things about being put off at the start by the number of postings, and by people’s signatures which identity other courses they have studied.