I sit on two ethics committee/insitutional review boards which largely look at work in the social sciences, and more specifically often practitioner researcher where the applicant is undertaking work in their specific work setting by design (i.e. part of the qualification). I have been developing a tool to help them make explicit the various roles and relationships they have in such a situation prior to completing ethics in order to help them become aware of the issues they need to address in designing an ethical project. The "Power Map" specifically asks them to set out their roles and relationships visually (like an influence map or mind map), showing the connections between all the various parties involved in their project and how power flows between them. I wondered if anyone else was also using this kind of tool already or had another solution?
Hi,
Your question is: Have you ever seen/used a Power-Map for research relationship evaluation?
In social science and community based studies they are using the method Power map. Kindly see the attachment PDFs.
Dear Senthilvel - thank you for these resources. They are very interesting. I'm thinking of adapting this kind of map help people map out their roles and relationships within their own work. I think it's really about trying to make the example in the first document more multi-factorial. Thanks again for these resources they are much appreciated. Kind Regards
Emma
i am not familiar with power maps but just looked at some on web and also one of senthilvel's examples. they are essentially (3D ish) mind maps. I started using mindmaps about 5-7 years ago and now outline any and all projects and writing with them, mainly iThoughts on both desktop and mobile apple platforms (< http://toketaware.com/ithoughts-new-home/ >). i can't say enough for it. amazingly supported and with frequent updates; flawless bidirectional synching between all devices; excellent compatibility and import/export from/to opml mindmanager, doc, jpg, et al.
another tool that has a relatively steep learning curve and is much more expensive but is uniquely its own is TheBrain: (< http://www.thebrain.com >)
good luck.
Thanks Richard - yes, I was thinking an online tool would be best, because of the complexities of roles and relationships something more 3D than traditional power maps used in the community would be useful for the ethics review context. Thanks for these suggestions and I'll give them a go!
You might be interested in some of Kevin Boyack's works in the mapping of science domain research. (I think one of two of them have to do with the relationship between philanthropy and various domains.) Also, Kevin has done some research with Marjorie Hlava on the mapping of domains represented in the IEEE thesaurus. Kevin mostly uses proprietary visualization methods developed by SciTech Strategies, and has made use of VxInsight, developed by Sandia National Laboratories with the Institute for Scientific Information.
Thanks Barbara - while this doesn't quite work for the purpose of providing a tool to applicants, it is extremely interesting material that I can use for some other work I do. Thanks again
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