On 3/17/08, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu>
wrote:
Complete anonymity is a very high standard. This
is honor system anonymity.
He told you it's anonymous because he's going to protect your anonymity in
the data analysis.
Hmm, maybe. I distinguish between:
1) We will attempt not to collect personally identifying information about you
and
2) We will collect personally identifying information, but attempt to
protect it.
If it's 1), I simply need to trust that the information gatherer is
not malicious. If it's 2) I need to trust that they are competent.
Not that it's really important - my editing record is public, my user
name is not a secret, etc. It just gave me pause...long enough to lose
interest.
Sorry to hear that you lost your interest, Steve, but I do understand
your concern for sure.
My first and foremost concern to keep you all anonymous from all third
parties both when it comes to the data I collect and how I report it. A
total anonymity is rather problematic as I know that I might be
collecting personally identifying information in the open ended
questions with information sources in them. On specific topics the
information someone is using can easily reveal the article and same time
the contributor.
I am going to use the information on information sources and article
together (to understand better your answers) and separately (from this
survey) profile Wikipedia on the basis of their public profiles, but I
am not going to actually track down any individual respondents. I could
have skipped the question about naming the articles in question, but
then I would have needed to ask you to describe the article
(anonymously) in detail. I chose however not to make any question
compulsory, so you do not have to tell me the name of the article you
are describing, if you absolutely don't like to do that. I can use that
data too, even if it is a lot less informative.
The bottomline is still that I sincerely hope that you can think that
you can trust me and my ethical integrity.
The survey can be found still at
http://survey-3.istohuvila.fi/index.php?sid=62924&lang=en
Best Wishes,
Isto Huvila
--
Ph.D., research fellow, lecturer
Information Studies :: Åbo Akademi University
(w) +358-2-2153467 (m) +358-40-5726259
(e) isto.huvila(a)abo.fi (w3)
www.istohuvila.fi