Presented as part of "Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities" (#RODH2012) Oct 23-25, 2012, Ireland. More info: www.dri.ie/programme

1. Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Panel 1: Intellectual
Property, Licensing,
Copyright
What you can and
cannot do with data
Dr. Mary Muldowney

2. Oral history in Ireland
Oral History Network of Ireland - 2010
Best practice in the collection, preservation and use of
recorded memories of the past
Interviews for my early oral history research:
 expand on archival sources
 find often hidden facts about the past
 access provided by individual experience
 Influences on the formation of collective memory
So far, so safe – and so arrogant?

3. Shared authority of the interviewee
 Evolution of my own oral history practice
 Ethical dilemmas and consent from research
participants
 Always protect interviewees and honour their wishes
 Best practice in oral history research is based on trust
 Relationship between interviewer and interviewee is a
collaborative one
Making recordings available for research and other use
should only happen within a legal and ethical framework
which protects the interests of the interviewees

4. Andrea Martin:
 constitutional right to
freedom of expression
 constitutional right to
privacy
 law of confidentiality
 image rights protection
 copyright law
Collecting Oral Narratives:  performer’s rights
Ethics, Best Practice  data protection legislation
and the Law
Conscientious observation of
ethical norms …
www.oralhistorynetworkireland.ie

5. Paul Thompson’s Voice of the Past
One of the seminal manuals for the
practice of oral history. In the first
edition, published in 1978, Thompson’s
intention was to challenge the critics
of oral history, who came mainly from
the academic establishment, who
suggested that oral history was neither
legitimate nor reliable.
Oral history facilitates the social and
political purpose of recording history –
to understand the past in order to
make changes in the present.

6. Boston College and the Belfast Project
 Oral History Network of Ireland conference in Ennis
 Anthony McIntyre presentation
 Ed Moloney, Anthony McIntyre and Wilson McArthur:
40+ interviewees
… it was envisaged that the material
would be of benefit not merely to
historians but also to people involved in
conflict resolution and policy making
right across the board. If the causes of
politically violent conflict can be better
understood and anticipated in advance
The Pensive Quill
then it stands to reason that the potential http://thepensivequill.a
for averting such conflict increases. m/2012/10/the-belfast-
project-and-boston-
college.html

7. Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War
in Ireland
 Interviews with the late IRA activist
Brendan Hughes and the late David
Ervine, Ulster Volunteer Force activist and
leader of the Progressive Unionist Party
 The original agreement with participants
- interview material held securely by
Boston College until the interviewees
died or gave permission for their
interviews to be made public
 British government and Dolours Price
interview
 Obligation of the researcher to be true to
any guarantees offered to the research
participant.

8. Pragmatically, pledging and maintaining strict confidentiality
provides the foundation of trust and rapport that allows
researchers to gather valid data to promote understanding of
the human condition, and provide the basis for rational social
policy. In some cases, information shared with a researcher
may be so sensitive – and its disclosure so potentially
damaging – that the fate of the individual may literally rest in
the researcher’s hands. In such situations, both the
researcher’s ethical obligations and the need for a solid bond
of trust are clear. If people do not trust researchers, they will
not share sensitive information, and the value of research to
society will diminish.
Ted Palys and John Lowman, “Protecting Research Confidentiality: Towards a Research
Participant Shield Law” in Canadian Journal of Law and Society / Revue canadienne droit
et société, Volume 21, no. 1, 2000, pp. 163-185.
http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/ProtectingResearchConfidentiality.pdf

9. Ethical dilemmas in oral history/social
science interviews
 Threats to researcher’s freedom or safety
 If the researcher can not be certain to meet the
conditions set by the interviewee then he/she
should not proceed with the interview
 Power imbalances can divide interviewers from
their interviewees
 Social realities can work against honest and
open disclosure by interviewees talking about
their lives

10. Ethical dilemmas
 While the recent outcome of the Belfast Project has
been difficult - to put it mildly - it need not suggest
that oral history and social science interviewing is
fraught with ethical and/or legal difficulties that
cannot be overcome
 Being an academic researcher does not put you
beyond the possibility of conducting respectful and
informative interviews with people from all sorts of
backgrounds

11. Advantages of interviewing
 Allows the practitioner to get past the inadequacies
of some of the conventional historical sources,
particularly in investigating the lives of so-called
‘ordinary’ people
 Good oral history interviewers “work with narrators
to create a record worthy of preservation that is of
value not only to scholars but also to society’s
collective understanding of the past” [Linda Shopes]
 “Sure I wouldn’t have anything interesting to say”
 Tea and cake revelations
 Consent

12. Born digital data and ethical
standards
 If we are creating an archive of interviews as a digital
dataset does the absence of such input undermine the
value of the research?
 If I anonymise what I was told and include it is that a
breach of the trust shown by the interviewee?
 How valid is my interpretation of what was said since I
cannot check the record to be sure I am making an
accurate representation of the interviewee’s
viewpoint, particularly if my interpretation is based on
post factum notes?

13. Born digital data and ethical
standards
 How do we ensure that the researcher
behaves honestly and what kind of penalties
should be imposed and by whom if there are
no clear guidelines or legal constraints on
how the interviews are conducted?
 Is it desirable to have a one size fits all
approach?

14. Public dissemination of data + consent
 Verbatim transcripts
 Print dissemination
 Websites
 Hundred or thousands v. millions?
 Digitisation of pre-Internet interviews and
consent
 Audience could be very frightening to a person
who is trusting an individual interviewer but
would be very uncomfortable with the
considerably larger one made possible by the
Web

15. Informed consent
 Interviewees pre-deceasing digitisation
 Ownership of the interview
 The issue of authority in the research relationship
and how it is shared in oral history practice is a very
important one and relates to the question of how we
disseminate the data that we obtain from interviews
 No easy answer
 Best practice in oral history involves the researcher
doing as much as possible to be certain that the
interviewee is fully informed about how and where
the interview will be made public

16. Confidentiality
 Guarantees of anonymity may be appropriate
but generally would be considered on a case by
case basis
 The key consideration of a case-by-case analysis
is whether confidentiality is essential to the
achievement of the research objectives
 Can confidentiality actually be delivered if the
law can be used to force the release of data that
was not intended for public disclosure within a
certain time frame?

17. Extension of protective obligations
 Not just for interviewee – anyone mentioned in
interview
 Dolours Price and press interviews – strengthened
UK government’s case in US courts – Gerry Adams
and Jean McConville
 Whether or not this material was defamatory is not the Dolours Price
point at issue here although it is a salutary lesson in the
dangers of using interview data out of context. Brendan
Hughes wanted to tell his story but he is no longer
around to be questioned about the accuracy of his
recollections
There is a strong argument for securing all
legacy interviews for a sufficient length of
time to guard against their being used in an
unbalanced way to suit particular agendas

18. Lessons from Boston College?
 Does not mean we should not engage in
interviews that are potentially controversial
or even dangerous
 We need protective mechanisms to ensure
that the data from such research cannot be
used in ways that were unintended by the
researchers or the participants
 Code of Practice for the DRI

19. Academics are not police and if
they are enlisted in the service of
policing activity they will soon lose
the cooperation of interviewees
whose personal stories may have
much value for public learning.