Identify key issues related to - Essay Example

Internet communities Affiliation: Identify key issues related to intrusiveness, vulnerability, potential harm, informed consent, and confidentiality, which should be considered by researchers before studying an internet community.The internet contains a wide array of information and researches from people’s blogs to personal opinions and researcher’s seeking research participants on various issues (Eysenbach & Till, 2001). It is important for internet researchers to seek informed consents from their research subjects.

The consent is mostly sought through the mail after explanation of what the research is about and what it will entail. Only those who provide the consent should be used as research subjects.Some research topics are intrusive of the personal lives of people such as those involving medical conditions or that of their family members. In such researches, the researchers should provide an advance warning to the participants and not coarse them into disclosing any private information they do not wish to for legal reasons.

Vulnerable participants such as those who are at risk, those with diseases or those who have experienced los should be handled differently from the other participants. This is because the research questions invasion might affect their mental and emotional state which might compromise the research findings (Nieswiadomy, 2012). The researcher must be careful to avoid potential harm being inflicted on the participant as it may not be easy to undo it as the communication is not face-to-face. It is important for the researcher to take time to therefore interact with the participants to get to understand them and hence be aware of how to avoid causing harm.

Lastly is on ensuring confidentiality of the research information by the participants especially amidst the hackers and viruses that might expose it. It is important to put safety precaution measures to safeguard the information. ReferencesEysenbach, G., & Till, J. E. (2001). Ethical issues in qualitative research on internet communities. British Medical Journal, 323(7321), 1103-1105.Nieswiadomy, R. M. (2012). Foundations of nursing research (6th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education