Information on participation in a research project about digital volunteerism in Finland
Please read the following information and contact me if you have questions about the research project or if you wish that your comments be excluded from the study.
Aim of the study
The study aims to understand how digital volunteerism has formed in Finland after the war in Ukraine began in February 2022. Digital volunteers are ordinary citizens who spontaneously gather online, for instance on social media, to help in crises. Digital volunteerism is a rather new phenomenon in Finland, and currently, the authorities do not have much knowledge about how digital volunteer groups work. This can have a negative effect on their crisis management and possibilities for cooperation. Thus, the study adds to the growing knowledge of digital volunteerism by looking at how digital volunteers cooperate during crises with each other but also with actors outside the groups, such as public authorities, companies, and associations.
Your participation in the study
I am interested in studying the specific Facebook group in detail because it is an example of digital volunteering and has many active members who have cooperated with others in the group but also with actors outside it to help refugees who come to Finland. You are one of those members. I have contacted the group administrator and he/she has given informed consent that the Facebook group is one of the groups that will be studied in this research project. Because I’m interested in analyzing posts and comment threads where even your comments can be included, you have the right to know how I use and process the data that can include comments you have written. Posts will be collected from the first year after the group was founded.
Data collection and processing
To collect and analyze data I will be saving the posts and comment threads as PDF files. Data that is collected in these files include personal information such as name, photo (profile photo), and eventually other identifiable information that comes forth in the posts and comments. After the data is collected, it will be anonymized which means that no one can connect your personal information to the posts or comments you have written. The anonymization process will be done by processing and editing the PDF files so that no names, photos, or other personal information is left when the content analysis begins.
All raw data (meaning data that still contains personal information) will be collected and processed by me, Heini Ruohonen, who is the researcher responsible for the project. Only I will have access to the document with your personal information.
All data will be stored on Åbo Akademi’s protected server. A backup copy of the material is kept on an encrypted hard drive and is kept in a locked closed only I have access to. After the research project is finished, all data will be anonymized. This means that documents that contain personal information, and which have been saved to be able to identify your posts and comments, will be destroyed. After the finished project, all anonymized data will be stored at Finnish Social Science Data Archive (https://www.fsd.tuni.fi/en/). For more information on how your data is protected, please see the Privacy notice.
Your rights
Participating in this research project is completely voluntary and you have the right to ask us to exclude material posted by you from the study without negative consequences. You do not have to provide a reason for your withdrawal. You can choose to withdraw from the study any time you want by sending me an email. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about the research project or the data collection.
You can contact me by sending me an email (heini.ruohonen(@)abo.fi) or by writing a comment below.
Kind regards,
Heini Ruohonen
Doctoral student at Åbo Akademi University at the faculty for Social Sciences, Business and Economics, and Law