Facebook’s use an educational tool is growing, as is the body of research evaluating the platform’s efficacy in educational settings. However, few studies directly address the many ethical challenges of researching in Facebook. This paper draws on our experience of researching online communities, including Facebook groups, as the basis for identifying the ethical dilemmas that arise when researching social networks. We draw on traditional guidelines for educational research, together with debates around open and ‘guerrilla’ research, in suggesting some of the ways in which these ethical considerations might be managed. ududThe ethical challenges discussed in this paper include whether/how to gain informed consent in a public setting; the need to navigate online disinhibition and confessional activity; the need to address the ethical challenges involved in triangulating data collected from social media settings with data available from other sources; the need to consider the potential impact on individual research participants and entire online communities of reporting research findings; and the use of visual evidence and its anonymisation. We argue that it is imperative for the researcher to closely engage with the research context when making ethics-related decisions, as no two research settings are the same.ud
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机译：Facebook正在使用教育工具，评估该平台在教育环境中的功效的研究机构也在不断增加。但是，很少有研究能够直接解决在Facebook中进行研究的许多道德挑战。本文借鉴了我们研究包括Facebook群体在内的在线社区的经验，以此作为识别研究社交网络时出现的道德困境的基础。我们借鉴了传统的教育研究指南，并围绕公开研究和“游击队”研究展开辩论，提出了解决这些道德考量的一些建议。 ud ud本文讨论的道德挑战包括在公共场所是否/如何获得知情同意；需要浏览在线禁止和悔活动；有必要解决将社交媒体设置中收集的数据与其他来源的数据进行三角剖分所涉及的道德挑战；有必要考虑报告研究结果对单个研究参与者和整个在线社区的潜在影响；以及视觉证据的使用及其匿名化。我们认为，在制定与道德相关的决定时，研究人员必须密切参与研究背景，因为没有两个研究背景相同。
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