Remote interviews

Purpose

Performing interviews and other research activities via videoconferencing software, such as Teams and Zoom, can allow for greater collaboration and expand your participant pool, but introduces new risks compared to in-person meetings including: disruptive intrusions to meetings, privacy concerns about cloud-based data storage and transcription, etc.  

Audience

researchers

On this page

Initial considerations

Consult your human ethics protocol.

• Your human ethics protocol will need to specify the platform or solution you are using to interview research participants and how security is being maintain. It is essential that you adhere to the requirements outlined within your protocol and should a new platform or solution be required, that you amend your protocol.

• If you are unsure about your obligations, please contact the relevant ethics unit.

  • Ethics in Human Research | VPRI

What can I do?

Follow established best practices for common meeting tools.

Teams

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-security-best-practices-for-safer-messaging

Zoom

• https://uoft.service-now.com/utm_iits?id=kb_article_view&sys_kb_id=f0ba8777dbb6c510f0d18d6d139619d4

• Best practices for securing your zoom meetings - Zoom

Visit Connect+Learn for upcoming and past training sessions on Teams and Zoom.

• https://easi.its.utoronto.ca/training-documentation/connect-learn/

Contact your local IT group about what security settings are available to you through your U of T Teams or Zoom account.

• Contact us | Information Technology (IT)

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Additional help

General

Contact us | Information Security (IS)

Contact us | Information Technology (IT)

Researchers

Research Information Security - Information Security at University of Toronto

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