Search results

Qualitative research that involves the use of human participants calls for the need to protect those participants to give their honest view during data collection. This is an important part of every primary data collection in qualitative studies using interviews. This paper aims to investigate all available ethical considerations that need to be observed by the researcher when conducting primary data collection through interview and to explore the theories that underpin the ethics in qualitative studies.

This paper systemically reviewed existing qualitative data on ethics and gathered information that were analysed and presented on the topic area.

The findings show that ethical considerations deal with the various approaches adopted by the researcher to make the participants feel safe to participate in any given researcher. During an interview process in qualitative research, the findings show that anonymity, voluntary participation, privacy, confidentiality, option to opt out and avoiding misuse of findings are ethical considerations that must be observed by the researcher. The outcome of the investigation also shows that deontology and utilitarianism, rights and virtue are the main theories that underpin ethical considerations in research.

The rights of the research participants need to be respected in qualitative research to assist in gathering accurate information to achieve the objectives of study. This and other ethical principles such as anonymity, privacy, confidentiality, voluntary participation and option to opt out guide the researcher to systematically adhere to data collection approaches that yield valid results in qualitative data collection using interviews.

This paper aims to assess whether the current eResearch Knowledge Centre’s (eRKC) research support practices align with researchers’ requirements for achieving their research objectives. The study’s objectives were to assess the current eRKC research support services and to determine which are adequate and which are not in supporting the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) researchers.

This study uses interviews as part of the qualitative approach. The researcher chose to use interviews, as some aspects warranted further explanation during the interview. The interviews were scheduled using Zoom’s scheduling assistant. The interviews were semi-structured, guided by a flexible interview procedure and supplemented by follow-up questions, probes and comments. The research life cycle questions guided the interviews. The data obtained were coded and transcribed using MS Excel. The interview data were analysed, using NVivo, according to the themes identified in the research questions and aligned with the theory behind the study. Pre-determined codes were created in line with the six stages of the research life cycle and applied to group the data and extract meaning from each category. Interviewee responses were assigned to groups in line with the stages of the research life cycle.

The current eRKC research support services are aligned with the needs of HSRC researchers and highlight services that could be expanded or promoted more effectively to HSRC researchers. It proposes a new service, data analysis, and suggests that the eRKC could play a more prominent role in research impact, research data management and fostering collaboration with HSRC research divisions.

This study is limited to assessing the eRKC’s support practices at the HSRC in Pretoria, South Africa. A more comprehensive study is needed for HSRC research services, capabilities and capacity.

Assessment of eRKC followed a comprehensive interviewee schedule that followed Raju and Schoombee’s research life cycle model.

Zoom’s scheduling assistant may have generated Zoom fatigue and reduced productivity. Technical issues, losing time, communication gaps and distant time zones may have affected face-to-face interaction.

eRKC research support practices are rare in South Africa and most parts of the world. This study bridges the gap between theory and practice in assessing eRKC research support practices.

This research analyzed the existing academic and grey literature concerning the technologies and practices of people analytics (PA), to understand how ethical considerations are being discussed by researchers, industry experts and practitioners, and to identify gaps, priorities and recommendations for ethical practice.

An iterative “scoping review” method was used to capture and synthesize relevant academic and grey literature. This is suited to emerging areas of innovation where formal research lags behind evidence from professional or technical sources.

Although the grey literature contains a growing stream of publications aimed at helping PA practitioners to “be ethical,” overall, research on ethical issues in PA is still at an early stage. Optimistic and technocentric perspectives dominate the PA discourse, although key themes seen in the wider literature on digital/data ethics are also evident. Risks and recommendations for PA projects concerned transparency and diverse stakeholder inclusion, respecting privacy rights, fair and proportionate use of data, fostering a systemic culture of ethical practice, delivering benefits for employees, including ethical outcomes in business models, ensuring legal compliance and using ethical charters.

This research adds to current debates over the future of work and employment in a digitized, algorithm-driven society.

The research provides an accessible summary of the risks, opportunities, trade-offs and regulatory issues for PA, as well as a framework for integrating ethical strategies and practices.

By using a scoping methodology to surface and analyze diverse literatures, this study fills a gap in existing knowledge on ethical aspects of PA. The findings can inform future academic research, organizations using or considering PA products, professional associations developing relevant guidelines and policymakers adapting regulations. It is also timely, given the increase in digital monitoring of employees working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Digital contact tracing technologies are critical to the fight against COVID-19 in many countries including the UK. However, a number of ethical, legal and socio-economic concerns that can affect uptake of the app have been raised. The purpose of this research is to explore the perceptions of the UK digital contact tracing app in the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community in Leicester and how this can affect its deployment and implementation.

Data was collected through virtual focus groups in Leicester, UK. A total of 28 participants were recruited for the study. All participants are members of the BAME community, and data was thematically analysed with NVivo 11.

A majority of the participants were unwilling to download and use the app owing to legal and ethical concerns. A minority were willing to use the app based on the need to protect public health. There was a general understanding that lack of uptake will negatively affect the fight against COVID-19 in BAME communities and an acknowledgement of the need for the government to rebuild trust through transparency and development of regulatory safeguards to enhance privacy and prevent misuse.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the research makes original contributions being the first robust study conducted to explore perceptions of marginalised communities, particularly BAME which may be adversely impacted by the deployment of the app. By exploring community-based perceptions, this study further contributes to the emerging citizens’ perceptions on digital contact tracing which is crucial to the effectiveness and the development of an efficient, community-specific response to public attitudes towards the app. The findings can also help the development of responsible innovation approaches that balances the competing interests of digital health interventions with the needs and expectations of the BAME community in the UK.

The purpose of this study is to identify the core responsible leadership (RL) practices that are most relevant to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) restaurants. Furthermore, the authors adapt scales to measure these practices and conduct a pilot study to evaluate their impact on business performance in such establishments.

Exploratory sequential mixed methods are used to fulfill the research aims. In the first phase, a set of definitions and practices associated with RL are derived from a systematic literature review. Second, a projective method of data collection is applied, involving a panel of 16 experts. Third, a fuzzy cognitive map is developed, which captures the responses of 40 owners or general managers of SME restaurants.

Twenty-five practices are identified from the systematic literature review. The results show the five leadership practices that match the order of importance assigned by the experts: societal orientation, ethics, stakeholder involvement, power-sharing and environmental orientation. The relevance of those five practices is validated to explain SME restaurants’ financial performance and innovation performance.

Innovation is the key to advancing business sustainability and resilience, and the results identify the specific RL practices that enable improvements to be made in innovation performance among SME restaurants.

This paper identifies the RL practices that are particularly relevant to the tourism field (specifically, the restaurant industry), offers measurement scales for those practices and provides empirical evidence of the relationship between these RL practices and business performance in SME restaurants.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how a methodological coupling of visualisations of trace data and interview methods can be utilised for information practices studies.

Trace data visualisation enquiry is suggested as the coupling of visualising exported data from an information system and using these visualisations as basis for interview guides and elicitation in information practices research. The methodology is illustrated and applied through a small-scale empirical study of a citizen science project.

The study found that trace data visualisation enquiry enabled fine-grained investigations of temporal aspects of information practices and to compare and explore temporal and geographical aspects of practices. Moreover, the methodology made possible inquiries for understanding information practices through trace data that were discussed through elicitation with participants. The study also found that it can aid a researcher of gaining a simultaneous overarching and close picture of information practices, which can lead to theoretical and methodological implications for information practices research.

Trace data visualisation enquiry extends current methods for investigating information practices as it enables focus to be placed on the traces of practices as recorded through interactions with information systems and study participants' accounts of activities.

There is significant national interest in tackling issues surrounding the needs of vulnerable children and adults. This paper aims to argue that much value can be gained from the application of new data-analytic approaches to assist with the care provided to vulnerable children. This paper highlights the ethical and information governance issues raised in the development of a research project that sought to access and analyse children’s social care data.

The paper documents the process involved in identifying, accessing and using data held in Birmingham City Council’s social care system for collaborative research with a partner organisation. This includes identifying the data, its structure and format; understanding the Data Protection Act 1998 and 2018 (DPA) exemptions that are relevant to ensure that legal obligations are met; data security and access management; the ethical and governance approval process.

The findings will include approaches to understanding the data, its structure and accessibility tasks involved in addressing ethical and legal obligations and requirements of the ethical and governance processes.

The aim of this research is to highlight the potential use of use new data-analytic techniques to examine the flow of children’s social care data from referral, through the assessment process, to the resulting service provision. Data held by Birmingham City Council are used throughout, and this paper highlights key ethical and information governance issues which were addressed in preparing and conducting the research. The findings provide insight for other data-led studies of a similar nature.

This study aims to investigate the futuristic visions of PhD students at Distance Education department of Anadolu University on the use of learning analytics (LA) and mobile technologies together.

This qualitative research study, designed in the single cross-section model, aimed to reveal futuristic visions of PhD students on the use of LA in mobile learning. In this respect, SCAMPER method, which is also known as a focused brainstorming technique, was used to collect data.

The findings of the study revealed that the use of LA in mobile can solve everyday problems ranging from health to education, enable personalized learning for each learner, offer a new type of evaluation and assessment and allow continuous feedback and feedforwards; yet this situation can also arise some ethical concerns since the big data collected can threaten the learners by interfering with their privacy, reaching their subconscious and manipulating them as well as the whole society by wars, mind games, political games, dictation and loss of humanity.

The research is limited with the views of six participants. Also, the sample of the study is homogeneous in terms of their backgrounds – their age range, their departments as PhD students and their fields of expertise.

The positive perceptions of PhD students provide a ground for the active use of LA in mobile. Further, big data collected through LA can help educators and system makers to identify patterns which will enable tailored education for all. Also, use of LA in mobile learning may stimulate the development of a new education system including a new type of evaluation and assessment and continuous feedback and feedforwards.

The widespread use of mobile technologies opens new possibilities for LA in the future. The originality of this research comes from its focus on this critical point.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his 2018 State of the Nation Address, stated that “Thieves who are stealing public funds should be arrested and prosecuted”, and called for lifestyle audits of public-sector employees. The gross misuse of COVID-19 relief funds by public officials indicated the urgent need to execute these audits as an anti-corruption measure. This paper aims to provide a review of the existing state of affairs with regard to the application of lifestyle audits in South Africa.

This paper critically analyses the literature available on the current position of South Africa concerning lifestyle audits in the public sector, based on the mandates of some of the anti-corruption agencies that could be responsible for the conducting and processing of such audits.

South Africa has only recently seen a framework for applying lifestyle audits, developed by the Department of Public Service and Administration. Although these first steps in developing a standard practice are laudable, the practical process of dealing with misconduct and/or criminal matters remains to be seen. It is recommended that South Africa consider a legislative approach to dealing with unlawfully obtained wealth by either criminalising the act of illicit enrichment (per the United Nations Convention Against Corruption) or creating an Unexplained Wealth Order, as seen, for example, in the UK.

South Africa is in dire need of addressing corruption in the public sector. Despite lifestyle audits being called for, the lack of proper implementation is negating any positive outcomes. Therefore, alternative solutions should be investigated.