EFRESH guidance

Our EFRESH project identifies practices for effective, safe and responsible research on online communities. Our research interviews and review of relevant literature has revealed that researchers face an increased risk of harm when studying these communities. It has also revealed that there is an absence of institutional-level guidance outlining how to protect researchers during this work.

We have produced a set of guidance that outlines different steps to prevent and manage researcher harm during the study of online communities. This guidance is directed towards research institutions and research supervisors/managers as well as researchers themselves. In addition to suggestions for researcher protection the guidance also includes a tool to help users to identify the different possible implications of their work.

We have discussed early drafts of the guidance with members of the research community. This has provided valuable input and demonstrated the crucial need for better protection of researchers during the study of online communities – in particular protection provided by research institutions. We continue to discuss and make additions to the guidance. We are happy to share the guidance with others in the research community. If you are interested to see it, please complete this online form, providing an institutional email address.