In pursuit of ethical research : Studying hybrid communities using online and face-to-face communications

Hybrid communities using online and face-to-face communications to construct their practices are increasingly part of everyday life amongst people who have easy access to the internet. Researching these communities raises a number of challenges for researchers in the pursuit of ethical research. The paper begins by exploring what is understood by hybrid communities and how their practices might be researched using hybrid methods to investigate the experiences of participants in them. The discussion then considers what might be an ethical framework for researching activity in these entities, giving examples from several projects that have tried carefully to embed this framework in their practices. In exploring these studies, the paper highlights the ethical possibilities and challenges that online and offline spaces offer for researchers in the conduct of their qualitative educational research.