In today’s phone call @alberto brought up the issue of insuring that we have informed consent from participants who have not come in via the “funnel.” Mainly this happens if someone comes to one of our physical events, participates verbally, has their remarks documented and noted online, but they have not actually documented consent.
So in order to make sure that we are conforming to the judgement of the ethics advisor, it was suggested that we discuss ways in which we can secure this consent. This is more sensitive with Poprebel where someone might want to be more guarded about their remarks going beyond the room where they spoke them.
In the call we discussed some ways to accomplish this, but no airtight conclusions. Sign a physical consent form at the event? That would work, but then what happens to that paper? Do it on a laptop online before entering? Inefficient with the email confirmation process. Announcing it from the front of the room? Works, but not documented.
At the internet days, participants themselves checked a consent box and pressed “send” on the form to submit the response that we have written down for them. Current text of the checkbox is:
I understand that submitting this form will create an account for me on Edgeryders.eu, and that my responses will be posted by that account. I understand that I can log in at any time and update my answer or continue the conversation with other participants. I understand that this form is used for community driven research. Researchers are encouraged to treat your answers as a window into societal, economic, technological, and political trends and transformations that affect us.
I think the idea here is to come up with a workable process that satisfied the Ethics Advisor. This seems to be a small crack in an otherwise good process…