Scenario 6: India common service centres vs. mobile phone based approach to tele-health

Dr K and Dr R have been working with an NGO in one of India’s states in a 4 year investigation using new interactive systems to deliver health advice and care in a remote rural district. After a year of intense discussions, the project is exploring ways of supporting remote health consultations and advice through electronic links to a health centre in the main town of the block, and (if required) linking to medical advisors in the district capital and other major cities of the state. In discussing the alternative solutions, Dr K & Dr R are interested in using an approach based on high-end smartphones, that they think represents a significant advance in research. They reason that, although the phones & services are too expensive at present to be sustainable, the solution they devise could be sustainable in about 5 years time as the price of handsets and services decreases. On the other hand, the NGO is interested in a solution that makes use of the ‘Common Service Centres’ that the Indian federal government is rolling out across the country. These CSCs will provide internet access points in every panchayat. The NGO is aware of other similar projects that have used a similar approach, and would like to base their local solution on ‘tried & tested’ approaches. However, Dr K & Dr R are worried that implementing this solution would not be aligned with the objectives agreed with their research funder.

• What should Dr K & R do?
• How should they view the balance of ‘innovative research’ and ‘change delivery’ aspects of their project?
• What are the ethics, roles & relationships relevant to this situation?
• What other questions do we need to ask about this scenario?

Scenario 5: Technical team in UK vs. software developers locally

Dr C is managing an e-governance project in a Central Asian republic of Akagastan. There is a software development budget available, and Dr C has used some of it with Cardo Developers, a small company based in the capital of Akagastan. Dr C is hoping that the project’s interaction with Cardo developers will help build local interaction design capacity. For the first 18 months of the project, the software design has been progressing reasonably well, but Dr C is concerned that Cardo developers’ interfaces are of poor quality, and may result in the deployed system being more difficult to use than Dr C would like. Dr C may be able to spend some of the software development budget to employ one of her PhD students to do some of the design work, but this would have to come out of the original budget that was planned to be spent with Cardo.

• What should Dr Cdo?
• How should she view the balance of ‘capacity building’ and ‘change delivery’ aspects of their project?
• What are the ethics, roles & relationships relevant to this situation?
• What other questions do we need to ask about this scenario?

Scenario 4: Recruiting project participants at the local university

Dr P and Professor N are working on a microfinance project with women’s groups in a remote district of a South Asian country. Because these researchers are keen to build local capacity as part of their project outcomes, they have made contact with the IT department of a university based in the regional capital. They have been in contact with one of the faculty, Dr J, who has considerable experience of working with IT for development projects. They are hoping that they can recruit some students within the university who can work under Dr J’s supervision, to contribute to the technology design and development as part of their degree studies.

When Dr P & Professor N visit the faculty, however, they are informed that Dr J is about to start a sabbatical where he will be out of the country for 12 months, and they realise that the rest of the faculty of the university do not have experience of this kind of work, and they are concerned that if they involve students from this university, the students will not have sufficiently strong supervision to ensure that they behave sensitively and appropriately within the project. There is a risk that involving the students could make the project aims more difficult to deliver.

• What should Dr P & Professor N do?
• How should they view the balance of ‘capacity building’ and ‘change delivery’ aspects of their project?
• What are the ethics, roles & relationships relevant to this situation?
• What other questions do we need to ask about this scenario?

Scenario 3: Local champion leaves

A research team consisting of Dr M (based in North America) and 2 PhD students has been working for 2 years investigating mobile technologies to support work with a school district in the North of a West African republic. Extensive participatory design activities have been conducted, and a prototype software system is being developed. Trials for the new system are being planned, and will require some investment of time and money by the school district. Discussions with the director of the school district have been positive, and the project expects the district to agree to provide the necessary resources. However, three months before the trials are to begin, the director, who is the key champion for the project, leaves to take up a new post in the education headquarters of a district capital in the South West. During the interim period, the deputy director appears to be reluctant to progress the project, and the person appointed to the post does not seem particularly interested in supporting ICT initiatives.

• What should Dr M do?
• How might this affect the students’ PhD studies?
• What might the team have done differently to avoid this situation?
• What are the ethics, roles & relationships relevant to this situation?
• What other questions do we need to ask about this scenario?

Scenario 2: Inclusive research

Professor A, who is based in Europe, has been funded to develop ICT solutions relevant for rural health in a central Asian republic. She is keen to contribute to building local capacity in research and interaction design skills, and so is collaborating on the research with the IT department of a university in the capital. To support the collaborative investigation of local problems and participatory design of solutions, Professor A has appointed Dr C, a member of staff from the University, who is conducting the primary field work. Reading Dr C’s reports from the field, Professor A is concerned that Dr C’s participatory sessions may not be including and enabling sufficient input from women in the villages. Discussing the issues, Dr C says that he is working very hard to include the voices of women. However, from informal conversations Professor A knows that Dr C’s religious & social background suggests it is natural and appropriate for men & women to have very different roles, with women’s role being less autonomous.

• What should Professor A do?
• What might she have done differently to avoid this situation?
• What are the ethics, roles & relationships relevant to this situation?
• What other questions do we need to ask about this scenario?

Scenario 1: Advisor Trouble

Professor X and Dr Y have been funded by their government research council in Europe, to investigate ways of providing advice about diagnosing common diseases in cattle and other farm animals in sub-Saharan Africa. Professor X is a veterinary specialist; Dr Y is a computer scientist. In the first phase of their work, they are collaborating with an NGO in one district of Northern Tanzania to design and test a proposed solution. The solution includes a mechanism so that farmers in the villages can request advice from a veterinary advisor based in the market town.

The trials were going fairly well with farmers making good use of the service, which resulted in 10 to 20 queries a day being handled. However, after some re-organisation in the NGO, the veterinary advisor asked for a raise, and cited the extra work of dealing with the electronic queries as one reason for the request. The NGO was unwilling to pay the extra, so the advisor refused to answer the queries unless his income was increased. Professor X & Dr Y did not have any spare resources in their budget to cover these extra expenses.

• What should Prof X & Dr Y do?
• What might they have done differently to avoid this situation?
• What are the ethics, roles & relationships relevant to this situation?
• What other questions do we need to ask about this scenario?

Welcome!

The scenarios for the Ethics, Roles and Relationships Workshop at INTERACT 2009 will be posted here.