Supporting students to undertake remote fieldwork

This toolkit is for staff responsible for supporting students faced with adapting their research projects to avoid any requirement for in-person activity. 

It provides practical tips, and signposts to resources, on how to develop remote approaches to fieldwork, including:

• Alternative data collection and analysis 
• Research methods from other disciplines 
• Digital collaboration 
• Project ethics 

Benefits of fieldwork 

Fieldwork can benefit a student’s learning experience in many ways:  

• develops observational and analytical skills;
• takes students to places they would not normally experience;
• facilitates experiential learning through a focus on the real world – comparing real examples with model or idealized examples in textbooks;
• encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning;
• experiencing ‘real’ research through fieldwork, particularly residential fieldwork, allows concentrated study of a topic not usually possible with the normal timetable structure;
• develops a respect for the research environment;
• develops personal skills, such as teamwork, leadership and responsibility;
• breaks down barriers – fieldwork often facilitates more relaxed social contact between students and their peers and between students and staff.

Source: Based on Gold et al. (1991, 25–6) and Livingstone et al. (1998, 3)

Whether remote or in-person, work-based learning, professional practice and engaging in research processes adds another layer of learning for students which are impossible without exposure to field-based experiences.

Supporting remote approaches to fieldwork 

Alternative data collection methods may need adjusting and contextualising to the students’ specific case, but there are some general remote approaches which could be adopted across the disciplines:

• Qualitative and quantitative analysis of secondary data and archival data
• Meta-analysis of published studies
• Systematic literature review
• Internet mediated research

General resources on conducting remote fieldwork

Carrying out Qualitative Research Under Lockdown: Practical and Ethical Considerations - an LSE blog post (April 2020)

Conducting User Research While People Must Stay at Home Because of Coronavirus - UK Government guidance (April 2020)

Researchers from across the globe discuss the issues surrounding research and data collection during the Covid-19 situation in this 1hour 30-minute webinar from Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in July 2020. 

Doing Fieldwork in a Pandemic (crowd-sourced document) - produced by Deborah Lupton at the University of New South Wales. This document was initially directed at ways for how to turn fieldwork that was initially planned as using face-to-face methods into a more ‘hands-off’ mode. However, people have added useful material about ‘born digital’ research (content already generated on the internet by online interactions), which provides an alternative source of social research materials. This kind of document can support students in developing new ways of researching in their areas.

Resources on analysing existing data

For student projects where some data collection has already started, students may be worried that their projects are at risk. Is this really the case? Could alternative/additional data analysis procedures be applied or is sufficient data available for a more limited analysis? To what extent could this be acknowledged in the dissertation?

The National Centre for Research Methods offers good student podcasts on using secondary data.

Find and re-use data deposited by UCL researchers, e.g. on the Figshare Repository.

Open access data archives: The University of Essex hosts the UK Data Achive which contains the UK's largest digital collection of social sciences and population research data. 

Remote methods and approaches are being used in new research about COVID 19. Consider whether some of these could be adopted as part of students’ remote fieldwork approaches: 

COVID-19 trackers can also provide students with some ideas of how qualitative and quantitative methods are currently being used in remote contexts.

• COVID-19 Research Project Tracker by UKCDR & GloPID-R: UKCDR and GloPID-R have developed a live database of funded research projects on COVID-19 that will help funders and researchers identify gaps and opportunities and inform future research investments or coordination needs. Relevant for all researchers, from novice to expert.
• COVID-19 Social Science Research Tracker: This international list tracks new research about COVID 19, including published findings, pre-prints, projects underway, and projects at least at proposal stage.
• Inter-university Consortiums for Political and Social Research (ICPSR): a new repository of data examining the impact of the novel coronavirus global pandemic. This repository is a free, self-publishing option for researchers to share COVID-19 related data.is a repository for data examining the social, behavioral, public health, and economic impact of the novel coronavirus global pandemic. Deposits can include all data, annotated program code, command files, and documentation necessary to understand the data collection and/or replicate research findings. 

Internet-mediated research resources

Internet-mediated research has been around for some time. It involves research approaches which make use of internet-based communication such as emailing, instant-messaging (e.g. Whatapp) and social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.). Students may use these mediums as research phenomena in their own right or as tools for data collection.

Key issues and considerations in adopting approaches from internet-mediated research are the ethical concerns around consent, privacy and identity of those participating.

Making the move to this type of research practice would be learning curve for students but a valuable one which would enable a host of transferable skills learning around information, society and data science.

UK Research Integrity Office’s guidance on good practice in Internet-mediated research. ESRC guidance on internet-mediated research.

See also the Ethics section below. 

Many fieldwork types and their associated research methods do cross over into different disciplines. Make use of what is available across the spectrum. They may not be as different as first appear and are very transferable in the context of digital communication.

The move to remote could be an opportunity for some students to develop innovative approaches which have not previously been considered in your discipline areas. For example:

• Could your student(s) focus their project on testing out a virtual approach to a method or methodology?
• Are other disciplines already using some methods which could be used an inspiration or cross-fertilization?

In a recent Connected Learning Live session and accompanying Arena case study, Anne Preston talks about moving teaching research methods online, which can help support staff to introduce and teach remote fieldwork to students.

If your students are developing alternative approaches to Arts and Humanities fieldwork, some of the general approaches listed under Tip no. 1 could be tailored to a more arts and humanities perspective by looking more specifically at archival data, content analysis involved in internet research, online artistic interventions and ‘live’ online data capture.

Other ethnographic methods can also be used as an alternative to fieldwork initially planned as face to face. These include areas like:

• Online observation of social practices
• Online interviews
• Online discussion and focus groups.

General resources on online research methods

Qualitative Online Research Methods: Research methods commonly used in qualitative studies of online communication are identified. The reader is guided through the processes of selecting an object of study, selecting representative text, selecting a specific method of qualitative analysis (i.e., online interviews, participant observations, case study, content analysis, thematic analysis, discourse analysis), as well as deciding whether to employ computer analyses.

Online Research Methods, Quantitative: This addresses developments in online survey and experimental methods that improve the efficiency of quantitative online research, as well as recent technological advances that have made possible new means of exploring online populations and phenomena. While fundamental methodological concerns remain crucial for the conduct of sound research online—including sampling and data integrity issues—the emergence of “Big Data” and interest in researching online communities has prompted new variants on traditional methodologies, as well as raised new analytic and methodological issues that are largely specific to these data sources.

Offering non-lab based, alternative research projects in the Applied Medical Sciences: a case study from Dr Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez, UCL Division of Medicine. You might also find it useful to explore UCL guidance and case studies on developing remote alternatives to labs and practice-based education, which includes a link to a supportive Community of Practice on Moodle.

You might also find it useful to explore UCL guidance and case studies on developing remote alternatives to labs and practice-based education, which includes a link to a supportive Community of Practice on Moodle.

Resources for adopting arts and humanities-based research approaches

How to conduct an ethnography during social isolation: an online tutorial by David Miller from UCL Anthropology.

Panel discussion on remote methods for ethnographic research across the disciplines: a Q & A webinar, hosted by Stanford University's Center for Global Ethnography, moderated by co-directors Sylvia Yanagisako and Sharika Thiranagama.

Rethinking the field site in medical anthropology: a blog by Claire Somerville from UCL Medical anthropology on rethinking the fieldsite in her own research in light of Covid-19.

‘Innovative Social Research Methods’: a community Facebook page curated by Deborah Lupton (University of New South Wales), which may be of interest for those wanting to think about new and creative ways of doing social research. Deborah also posted an initial research agenda for social research: Social Research for a COVID and Post-COVID World: An Initial Agenda.

Doing Arts research in a pandemic - A crowd-sourced booklet produced by The Culture Capital Exchange (June 2020)

Doing ethnography remotely: A video interview with Sarah Pink from the Global Centre for ethnography at Stanford University.

Participatory, collaborative and action-research oriented approaches could involve the student collaborating with a community partner to conduct background research, or gather best practices or other information that is useful to the partner(s).

For example, students might work with a partner to:

• Create marketing plans, digital and other social media content, print program materials, or other methods for information-sharing.
• Undertake service assessment, evaluation, or feedback via phone or web-based services.
• Conduct virtual or phone-based educational support for youth and adults.
• Develop and deliver online workshops, lesson plans, or class curricula.
• Develop videos, digital and graphic design or artwork.

Students may wish to include specific research questions on the impacts of the pandemic on external partners and organizations.

Collaboration can be undertaken virtually in numerous ways. For example, classes have carried out remote research by conducting video or phone interviews, designing surveys, or analysing historical documents or existing data on behalf of the partner. Taping, recording, or streaming performances or workshops might also benefit the student’s project and community partner(s).

General resources on participatory, collaborative and/or action-research

Guidance on Conducting and Supervising Community-Oriented Psychology Research During COVID-19: a guide from the University of Brighton.

Advice and tips on working with community members and groups in a digital learning environment: published by UCL’s Community Engaged Learning Service at UCL. See also this case study on 'Enhancing the student experience through community engaged learning'.

Knowledge sharing and exchange in a pandemic This crowd-sourced booklet, produced by The Culture Capital Exchange (June 2020), is a space for researchers and for the knowledge exchange community to share stories and examples of innovative practices at this time of unprecedented challenge. The examples are relevant for all researchers, from novice to expert.

If considering alternative approaches to fieldwork and other data collection activities, this may have some impact on information that was originally prepared (and approved) or in the process of being prepared for ethical approval.

See UCL's Guidance for research and ethical approval in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

General resources on ethics considerations for remote fieldwork

The impact of COVID-19 on research ethics: a blog by UCL’s Fabiana Maglio from the Centre for Education and International Development (CEID). 

Key Ethical Questions for Research During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A more general academic discussion is also available from The Lancet Psychiatry (May 2020).

If moving to internet-mediated research (in the case of a number of data collection alternatives), students should consider ethical guidelines such as those produced by the British Psychological Association.

A more recent example of guidelines have been produced by the Association of Internet Researchers:

• Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0. by Franzke, Aline shakti, Bechmann, Anja, Zimmer, Michael, Ess, Charles and the Association of Internet Researchers (2020).

An older document but which contains important recommendations:

• Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee Report (Version 2.0) by Markham, A. and Buchanan, E. (2012).