My Communities

This is the biase of committing either type-1 or type-2 errors. You observation is right and must be guided against.

Ensuring anonymity and confidentiality of clients information gives the clients confidence in the project. This confidence is enjoyed where there is need for referral by difficult to find clients community which are usually difficult to enter and obtain information.

It is worthy of note that participants can suffer negligence intentionally or unintentionally exhibited the project workers. This therefore requires adequate training of project workers on ethical matters.

its been a great topic and has given me an informed point of collecting quality data without harming my respondents or participants this is through considering the experience of my participants, asking for informed consent through explaining the objects of my survey, keeping my participants anonymous and their information confidential by not giving it out to other parties and using it specifically for my survey purposes ,identifying and avoiding potential areas where my data may exacerbate existing inequities

It is wonderful to have this understanding. It helps to have a real understanding of the matter if the participant understand that you mean no harm and their consent is approved.

It is really important to respect participants/respondents decisions to partake or not partake in a research. No harm should befall them for accepting or not accepting to participate. If they do decide to participate, their identities should be kept confidential.

It might cause harm if it is not kept confidential and the data management is not done to the standard. Thus if all cautions are not taken into consideration and data that should be anonymous are disclosed it will definetly cause harm to our repondents.

This is very important information as a beginner for me in data collection and polices also. it will help me in my career and personal life.

Q1. Obtaining Informed Consent for medical research from the prisoners, highly conservative persons (e.g HIV infected and other diseases as such) is not very feasible. How can one do about this especially if the study is highly pending in need of these group of persons? Consider that you have promised to keep their information confidential and have explained time and again the purpose of the study but still they refuse to give consent.
Q2. How can one effectively ensure that data presented does not cause harm? For instance, you presented a data on highly infected areas with HIV. what image do you think you you gave to those areas you named as highly infected. Positively, you might want to ensure rapid health intervention.
Negatively, you retard socioeconomic activities and possibly development in that area.
So how can one possibly ensure not causing harm?

What if the participants do not need to be protected or do not want to be kept anonymous, such that they want the pubic to recognize who they are?

Interesting

Doing no harm has to go a long way in improving organizational integrity. As an M&E expert you have to maintain confidentiality is all area of data collection to data visualization. on the hand, you have to have you read the purpose of the data collection those who can read and write but they are capture to participate in the survey. maintaining confidentiality is another way of getting quality data from your respondent.

The importance of keeping promise cannot be overemphasized due to the fact that it could affects people in so many ways especially when promises are the made to those in need.

we are required to do no harm for our respondents because of many things like for example future trust, keeping your promises and respecting rule and regulation of confidentiality keeping.

Ethical considerations are very important when collecting, analysing and presenting data findings. Ensuring confidentiality of sources helps in keeping them safe.

NO. M and E data should be confidential to the extent possible. In this situation the data should be marked anonymous to prevent people associatig the findings to a target group of people. Experience has shown that in cases where data collection is not labelled anonymous, the respondents often become subject of political or religious retaliation.

No. the data collected should be collected on the anonymous basis to protect the data provider. Important ethical value of M& E is Do no Harm. M&E data should not be used to further worsen the condition of a target group of people.

Data is used to make informed decisions hence it's very sensitive. It has to be used carefully so that it cannot harm the targeted population that you were expecting to benefit from it.

Even though key ethical considerations are avoiding conflicts of interest, maintaining independence of judgement, maintaining fairness, transparency, full disclosure, privacy and confidentiality, respect, responsibility, accountability, empowerment and sustainability. DO NOT HARM is still the first core value of ethical principles it is true that many expertises from different conducting data from in various sources cause harm to their beneficiaries unintentionally maybe at the data places or during presentation of data. I argue to all research to pirioty the safe their beneficiaries in the all field wwork.

On this topic do no harm, what can say is that:

1. When the information is kept as a secret, it will allow more people to open up.
2. Identifying people with experience or more knowledge is of importance.
3. All very sensitive information most be handled with care and making sure that the data does not for in wrong hands.
4. The surveys most be told or learn of keeping information confidential.

Guys, we have seen the importance of ethics in M&E, apart the principles mentioned in the course; Do no harm, honest and competence. what other ethical principles that we should consider when were are designing, implement M&E?

In ensuring that monitoring and evaluation practises causes no harm to participants, stakeholders or other people; it's best to consider the experience of your participants, ensure that all participants give informed consent to collect and use their data, ensure that, when appropriate,participant data is kept anonymous and confidential, idenyify and avoid potential areas where your data may exacerbate existing inequities.

In ensuring that monitoring and evaluation practises causes no harm to participants, stakeholders or other people; it's best to consider the experience of your participants, ensure that all participants give informed consent to collect and use their data, ensure that, when appropriate,participant data is kept anonymous and confidential, idenyify and avoid potential areas where your data may exacerbate existing inequities.

In module 1 titled ethical principles, the do no harm.principle has enlightened me on why the data collected from.participants should be kept confidential and anonymous because when these information are well kept,participants in future project will be willing to partake in such surveys no matter how you try to convince them.
I have also learnt in this module why a survey tool administered to the participant should be very direct to the point,not over bulging ,not being unnecessarily loaded so that participants don't find it too time demanding and confusing to give the right answers or answer all the questions

I see not information to respond to.

It's been interesting knowing that in data collection, consent is very important as interviewees need to know exactly what should be said and how they response will be used

It's been interesting knowing that in data collection, consent is very important as interviewees need to know exactly what should be said and how they response will be used

Do no harm is a principle where the people in a project are protected so that no physical or emotional harm is afflicted to them whether intentional or unintentional.

Yes the data could further damage the reputation of the low status people by the already biased politicians. When presenting the data, the organization need to clearly stipulate the percentage of people who have committed the crimes and not generalizing the entire population.

Ensuring that data collected from consenting subjects is highly important during data collection. More often subjects rights are violated when it comes to collecting data for projects. Its important that their opinions and concerns are respected and data collected from them does not violate their rights.

YES THE INFORMATION CAN BE USED TO FURTHER DAMAGE THE GROUP OF PEOPLE BECAUSE ALREADY THE PEOPLE WHO ARE USING OR INTERPRETING THE INFORMATION ARE NOT IN GOOD TERMS WITH THE GROUP, SO THERE IS HIGH POSIBILITIES THAT THE POLITICIANCE CAN DAMAGE THE GROUP.

THIS IS WHY IN M AND E WE NEED TO ENSURE THAT OUR PARTICIPANTS ARE KEPT SAFE. BY SAYING SAFE I MEAN ENSURING THAT WE CONSIDER THE EXPERIENCE OF OUR PARTICIPANTS,ENSURE THAT WE HAVE THE PARTICIPANTS CONSENT,AND THE DATA IS KEPT CONFIDENTIAL AND ENSURE THAT WE IDENTIFY AND AVOID POTENTIALAREAS WHERE THE DATA MAY EXACERBATE EXISTING INEQUITIES

Yes.. Strongly agree with these points as i have some personal experience like these. Suppoe in previous i dealed with an agri based project in that aspect we collected aadhar numbers from beneficiaries to create unique ids based on that but in future we faced some local issues with govt people and politicians who are trying capture all this data.

As one means to beef up the element of anonimity, participants should be assigned pseudo names.

Which model is best for storing data?

Do not harm principle from a point of view should act as a neutral ground that balance both participants in all sort of manner. Taking into consideration of the experience of participants. There are always diversity of people in a given geographical area in that when carrying out the data collection. both parties should be involved. By doing so the data collector will identify the key factors the hinders both the fortunate and less fortune. This at the end will help come up with a possible solution that help all the parties.
confidentiality of the data is crucial as the data collector who has the right to access help keeps the anonymity of the data collected. Linking data or exposing the data to third party may render the data void and also it will expose the participant, this at the end affects the consent of the participant and trust is lost as a result of all this.

Do no harm, as a professional M & E the most appropriate thing is to handle clients data very important because to them is why they give you the access to collecting their data not just because they don't want to keep it with them but because they think it is more secure and confidentially kept with their professionals. They believe that those data can never be access by anyone unless you are grand permission from the organisation as part of the professionals who can collect at the same time view those data. However that is why you need to be more careful and do no harm to clients data likewise create a very good security walls for unauthorized person to get in access to it.

Yes it will be.
Political opponents would surely use data made available to them that could help them gain leverage on their opposition parties/ opponents. That is why it is very important to ensure that the data you collect is kept safe and used with intergrity, all the time.

if i may add a comment i would say that do no harm concerning data collection may not only put the person we are hoping to help at risk but could also put the person collecting the data at risk if not properly handled. this in most instances can happens when we are dealing with sensitive political issue.

keeping data confidentiality could be achieved at multiple levels during M & E System. The team members working on data collection should be clear on how to talk to participants about the data , what information needs to be transmitted across different levels of the organization. Avoiding side talk about the project is important to avoid eliciting rumors and biased early judgments.

Participants are key in data collection and there is need to treat them justly and fairly and ensuring that they have consented to participate and provide with the data you are jn need of .Do not hurm the participants.

My name is ndeye seynabou gueye. I am Senegalese . in From data collection to data use. I can talk about data privacy. I once did a survey of street children. But at first they were afraid to answer certain questions because it affected their private life. So once the information is received it must be used in good use and the anonoymat must be respected.

*Bias - People can be biased about decision making especially people who have advantage and power over people to make decisions according to their own agendas and opinions. This might harm the society

It is always important to make sure that individuals who participate while collecting data are well informed about the organization's motives and goals to improve the well being of the society.

The people we use as a tool to collect data should feel the same way we do and be comfortable to provide us the accurate data and opinions.

It is the organization's responsibility to make sure we make them feel safe and with no transparency in humane way of having a normal conversations with lots of questions.

it is important to take this to heart because some communities are populated with illitrates that may easily feel prejudiced

it is very important for accurate M&E system to collect data in way that will never harm people wither from the affected commuities or from the others.

It is important to ensure that in all your data collection processes, the safety, security and well being of your subjects is put under consideration and respected. it is important to always seek informed consent and ensure anonymity by not using certain variables like names.

It is important to ensure that in all your data collection processes, the safety, security and well being of your subjects is put under consideration and respected. it is important to always seek informed consent and ensure anonymity by not using certain variables like names.

It is important to ensure that in all your data collection processes, the safety, security and well being of your subjects is put under consideration and respected. it is important to always seek informed consent and ensure anonymity by not using certain variables like names.

It is important to ensure that in all your data collection processes, the safety, security and well being of your subjects is put under consideration and respected. it is important to always seek informed consent and ensure anonymity by not using certain variables like names.

To make sure the data collected or managed has or does no harm to any individual, or organisation or any ethical/culture or language of other people.
To make sure the data doesn't damage other people's reputation or status privately or publicly.

To make sure the data collected or managed has or does no harm to any individual, or organisation or any ethical/culture or language of other people.
To make sure the data doesn't damage other people's reputation or status privately or publicly.

Data isn't harmful to individual or organisation or society.
Data that has no bias.
Data that isn't disrespectful or make or have negative impact about religion Ire culture or ethics or language

Data isn't harmful to individual or organisation or society.
Data that has no bias.
Data that isn't disrespectful or make or have negative impact about religion Ire culture or ethics or language

Data isn't harmful to individual or organisation or society.
Data that has no bias.
Data that isn't disrespectful or make or have negative impact about religion Ire culture or ethics or language

Harmless, Unbiased , No damage to any one, organisation or society

also have to be careful when we assess ethical risks that we do not self-reference - for example, if we think about an issue and conclude "i don't see any harm in this. I would not mind to be involved in this activity or release this information" then we are looking at it from our own point of view not our stakeholders. This could be dangerous because we might not experience the same types of vulnerabilities or risks as our stakeholders. We might have more resources, different networks ,or simply be able to leave the location at the end of the project whereas the project/program beneficiaries may have to stay there and face situations that we do not have to.

Data safety is very important and should be taken seriously

Data collection is very sensitive. If this operation is not done in respect of the privacy of the interviewee can create considerable damage.

Generally, the data collected requires the consent of the respondent. For a serious organization, this sensitive data should be protected, ie encoded and inaccessible to everyone. In certain cases, the signing of the confidentiality charter is imposed on the data collector.

what could be done incases where the questions involves asking about preferences and respondent feels like you are actually going to provide for the preference they give

this topic or ethical issue is one of the most important and helps give confidence to respondents

it also determines the quality of the data obtained

As stated above Honor the dignity, well-being, and self-worth of individuals. Do not, intentionally or unintentionally, cause physical, emotional or reputational damage to the people affected by your work.
From the example sited above Yes my data i release could be used by political opponents to further damage this group of people and can be of harm to the persons in this group because i should be able to Identify and avoid potential areas where your data may exacerbate existing inequities and as such treat my data as confidential or anonymous to protect the persons involved.

The data collected should solve the problem at hand not coursing more harm. Therefore, attention, focus and careful selection of words, phrases and meaning should be considered right from design of the tool, to collection of data.

Except when necessary or within an organization setting, anonymousity is very important in dealing with vital information gotten from people during data collection, these information when shared should be editted to avoid tracking from any source of danger

• Identify and avoid potential areas where your data may exacerbate existing inequities.

• Honor the dignity, well-being, and self-worth of individuals. Do not, intentionally or unintentionally, cause physical, emotional or reputational damage to the people affected by your work.
  Ensure that all participants give informed consent to collect and use their data.

• Ensure that, when appropriate, participant data is kept anonymous and confidential.

• Ensure that all participants give informed consent to collect and use their data.

according to my understanding do no harm Obligation not to inflict harm intentionally; In medical ethics, the physician's guiding maxim is “First, do no harm.” Beneficence (do good) Provide benefits to persons and contribute to their welfare. Refers to an action done for the benefit of others.

privacy of information should be guaranteed to people to allow free expression of the people responding to questions being asked. the information collected should be stored in a safe way to avoid it reaching the wrong hands.
the use of names should be avoided in certain situations to safe guard the life of the respondents. if possible, codes should be used to mean certain things to avoid leakage of information.

Of course, if the information collected revealthe name and location it will definitely trace the group and harm those people . This breach of principle of do no harm.

Do not is crtitical in data collection and managment

It really very important to collect data in a such a way that it does not do harm. This message should particularly be addressed to the enumerators. This are the ones who go on the ground collecting information. At times they my not be concerned with ethical issues due to fatigue or trying to meet the target of the data to be collected.

Those supervising data collection process they should put strict measures to ensure that the data being collected is not compromised.

This topic is really nice and very exciting.
So it's not just about collecting data from people but to ensure that your data does not harm the people who you are collecting it from, whether directly or indirectly.
One should be extremely careful and not just against the direct harm, as in the area of confidentiality, emotional stress or difficulty in providing the information, but against third party's wrong intentions on the data provided
Interesting.

Do No Harm : this means that security, safety, integrity and well being of participants.
Ethical approval: seek advance ethical approval for studies which involve primary data collection.
Right of respondent: Participation as a respondent data collection is voluntary and free from external pressure.
Confidentiality: all personal information and privacy and anonymity of respondents, records of names and contact information will be stored separately and securely from survey responses.

You just summarize everything, thump up

The Do no Harm principle is important as it may affect data quality if not considered. Participants need to give their informed consent to avoid "damage or harm". however, sometimes "harm"or "pain"is unavoidable; and in this case is "exposure to minimal harm or pain"justifiable?

While we are collecting data, we must respect the dignity, well-being and safety of the participants. If we are not careful or considerate, we may cause psychological damage or because of our careless ways, we may cause physical damage or damage to their properties by other parties who are against the group of for example minorities, LGBT Community, etc. We need to be considerate about not causing stress or confuse them and we need to make sure that they willingly sign the consent forms; we need to explain clearly that the information given by them is confidential and will be kept anonymous and won't be shared with others, and we should not share the information as we promised. We should also be careful about how much of the data will be used, if we share too much information with the authorities, will they use it against them? , that should be considered very carefully as well.

Data collection may do harm to the enumerator, key informant, community, or humanitarian access.
The complexity or sensitivity of questions versus the ability to do quality control in the field. Enumerators are given a brief introductory training on CP, GBV and Protection, and are not trained to collect sensitive data usually collected in specialist assessments. Often, enumerators work in areas that expatriate,managers do not have access to visit, thus limiting their capacity to ensure that the enumerators are asking complex questions as requested.
The humanitarian imperative. data collection often has a much wider geographic coverage within a country than partners, which means that suggested questions will be asked in locations with response capacity and also in locations without response capacity. It is therefore important to assess the balance between the benefits/risks of asking your question in an area without response capacity vs the need for data from those non-covered areas to advocate for programmatic expansion.

Do not harm is essential ethics principles for M& E activities as from the stage of Data collection, collate, analysis and dissemination it avoid bias and Enable the project practitioners to develop effective and efficient M & E system that will enable the organization to attain the results and objectives of intervention.

I think its unfair to judge a whole group based on the actions of a few. To make a broad statement indicating that you are blaming the group for problems without suporting data is quite unfair.

I HAVE LEARNED THAT BEFORE I DO DATA COLLECTION ,I MUST CONSIDER ALL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES BY INFORMING THE COMMUNITY,GIVING INDIVIDUAL EQUAL CHANCE OF PARTCIPATION AND EQUAL BENEFIT DISTRIBUTION TO AVOID BIAS.

All data can be used to cause harm to others, that's why is extremelly important to know who takes part of our team. However, there is no guarantee that data we collect won't be used by others to ear personal interests. In this case, a good way is to avoid showing data that suggest involvement in crimes and to try other data collection, that is, gathering data in another way, in a new perspective without harming other lifes.

Selon moi, le principe éthique " Ne fais pas de mal" nous demande de tenir compte du bien être d'autrui ( des parties prenantes) dans nos pratiques de S&E. Autrement dit tenir compte de : l'expérience des participants, de leur consentement, de leur désir de voir les données rester anonyme et confidentiel, et s'assurer que les données ne soient pas utilisées à des mauvaises fins.

do no harm is approach that cover so many epacts of ethical responsibilities of working organizations.

Do no harm means that be considerate of others whilst collecting data

Do no harm a very important and vital aspect in ethical principles in M and E

It is important to ensure that the data collection process is free of any form of bias and that it is not too stressful for the participants. However, how do you strike a balance when your assessment requires that you ask a lot of questions which might actually stress the participants.

it is important to do no harm to all participants who are involved in data collection. Sometimes harm does not only come from the only people that have been interviewed, but even from the people that were left out of the sample space. Alot of people could be left out due the large amount of population and sometimes this doesnt go well with the left out population who then start talking negative things about how the sampling was done. This can not only harm those left out but also those selected as they will think that their imput will not be taken seriously due to the claimed mis-sampling procedures.

According to Bryman & Bell (2007) considered ethics as important when conducting research. Therefore, the following are critical to consider when conducting research:
• The participants should not be subjected to harm in any way.
• All research communication concerning the research should be done with decency and transparency.
• Any false information and misrepresentation of the primary data in a biased way must be avoided.
• The protection of the privacy of the research participants must be assured.

It is important for the researcher to comply with the above ethical measures throughout.

What can be done about assessments with long questionnaires that will stress the participants or take a good chunk of their time?

The "DO NO HARM " principle instructs you to actively avoid causing damage with every one involved in your project. it helps you to ensure that your M&E practices causes no harm to participants, stake holders, your team and partner/donors. To do this, the following considerations has to be put in place

1. Consider the experience of your participants.
2. Ensure that all participants give informed consent to collect and use data
3. Ensure that appropriate participants data is stored and kept anonymous and confidential.

An example of goodness of following ethical principles in a M & E, a certain NGO published that 80% of the people in a certain district have mental problems or are psychic, this did not go well with the people of that district.

The principle of do no harm holds that there is an obligation not to inflict harm on others intentionally or unintentionally. To live according to this principle it is ethical the experience of your participants, Identify and avoid potential areas where your data may exacerbate existing inequities, Ensure that, when appropriate, participant data is kept anonymous and confidential and ensure that all participants give informed consent to collect and use their data.

In my statistics classes in College, ethics and moral standards that go around data collection have always beenabeen controversial subject between my fellow students. However being as harmless as possible in data collection process has been our common ground

This is very critical topic that needs every M&E to consider and be careful.

It is very important to be ethical while doing the process of data analysis and even collection since the last results will ne used in the decision taking.
I can use excel with tables
I can use excel analysis
I can use the rapid miner to extract data from forms
I can present it using powerpoint slides

We should be more accurate when we do an analysis like this mainly with using the tools

As i mentioned before, managing the collected data most be done using some how advanced tool to decrease the mistakes

A very good read. But how does someone collect enough data say when they have limited time keeping in mind the experience of respondents?

Data collection can be done using several tools, like forma that can be sent private emails or sometimes online http forms.
In my opinion, the data collector should take into consideration thag some data are private as medicins and maybe the deseases or health status...

Some data are private and they can not be given : diseases
Medicin
Mariage status
All these most be very private not only while gathering them , but only in their storage, cloud storage mabe the best.

Data collection
Data storage
data analysis
Conclusion
All these processes take time, if they will not end with a good beneficial presentation, then there is no need fo the whole process taking into consideration some data sources can not be included in any presentation since they are anonymous.