https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5471-1225
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ABSTRACT
The article answers the research question: under what conditions and with what methods would museum visitors feel comfortable (and not comfortable) sharing sensitive information for the purposes of museum research or evaluation? We ground our study in literature about sharing personal information in person, online, and in the context of digital marketing and social media. In our interviews of n = 114 science center visitors, we found that while majorities would share sensitive information in person with an evaluator, age and gender were important factors in predicting whether or not someone feels comfortable doing so in public settings or with tablet questionnaires. We then discuss the ethical importance of giving visitors choice in whether to and how to share their information for the purposes of evaluation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Data collection for this study took place before the COVID 19 Pandemic.
2 André et al., “Consumer Choice,” 28–37.
3 Rainie and Duggin, “Privacy and Information Sharing,” 47; Marwick and Eszter, “Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Lose?”
4 Hargittai and Marwick, “Explaining the Privacy Paradox,” 3737–3757.
5 Miltgen, “Online Consumer Privacy,” 574–603.
6 Narayanan and Shmatikov, “Privacy and Security,” 24–26.
7 Ibid.
8 Schwartz and Solove, “The PII Problem,” 1814–1894.
9 Narayanan and Shmatikov, “Privacy and Security,” 24–26.
10 Ibid.
11 Frederick, “When to Ask (or Not Ask).”
12 Phelps et al., “Privacy Concerns and Consumer”; Schaar et al., “The Impact of User Diversity,” 174–193.
13 Frederick, “When to Ask (or Not Ask).”
14 Schudy and Utikal, “You Must Not Know About Me.”
15 Ziefle et al., “Users' Willingness to Share Data.”
16 Happ et al., “Trick with Treat–Reciprocity.”
17 Marwick and Hargittai, “Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Lose?”; Mazurek and Malagocka, “What If You Ask.”
18 Ibid.
19 Zimmer et al., “Investigating Online Information Disclosure.”
20 Benndorf and Normann, “Willingness to Sell Personal Data.”
21 Nam et al., “Consumers' Privacy Concerns”; Olivero and Lunt, “Privacy Versus Willingness to Disclose”; Rainie and Duggin, “Privacy and Information Sharing.”
22 Eastin et al., “Living in a Big Data World”; Krafft et al., “Permission Marketing and Privacy Concerns.”
23 Awad and Krishnan, “Research Note”; Culnan and Armstrong, “Information Privacy Concerns”; Phelps et al., “Privacy Concerns and Consumer Willingness”; Morey et al., “Customer dDta: Designing for Transparency and Trust.”
24 Culnan and Armstrong, “Information Privacy Concerns”; Miltgen, “Online Consumer Privacy Concerns.”
25 Marwick and Hargittai, “Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Lose?”; Riyanto and Zhang, “Diminishing Personal Information.”
26 Ibid.
27 Marwick and Hargittai, “Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Lose?”
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Riyanto and Zhang, “Diminishing Personal Information.”
31 Holste and Fields, “Trust and Tacit Knowledge Sharing and Use”; Wiese et al., “Are You Close with Me?”
32 Happ et al., “Trick with Treat–Reciprocity.”; Rainie and Duggin, “Privacy and Information Sharing”; Weitzman et al., “Willingness to Share Personal Health Record Data.”
33 Wilkening, “Museums and Trust.”
34 Ibid.
35 Kerstetter, “Insider, Outsider, or Somewhere in Between.”
36 Benndorf and Normann, “The Willingness to Sell Personal Data”; Happ et al., “Trick with Treat–Reciprocity”; Porter and Donthu, “Cultivating Trust and Harvesting Value.”
37 Aiello et al., “Customers’ Willingness to Disclose.”
38 Ibid.
39 Chellappa and Sin, “Personalization Versus Privacy.”
40 Schaar et al., “The Impact of User Diversity”; Tschersich et al., “On Gender Specific Perception.”
41 Duggan, “Men, Women Experience”; Schaar et al., “The Impact of User Diversity”; Lin and Hajli, “Information Sharing on Social Networking Sites.”
42 Mazman and Koçak Usluel, “Gender Differences in Using Social Networks.”
43 Schudy and Utikal, “You Must Not Know About Me.”
44 Shapka et al, “Online Versus In-Person Interviews with Adolescents.”
45 Van Gool et al., “To Share or Not to Share?”
46 Rainie and Duggin, “Privacy and Information Sharing.”
47 Mintel, “The Oversharing Generation.”
48 Van der Heijden et al., “A Comparison of Randomized Response.”
49 Richman et al., “A Meta-Analytic Study.”
50 Ibid.
51 LaChenaye and McCarthy, “The Intersection of Counseling Microskills.”
52 Ibid.
53 Rolnick et al., “A Comparison of Response Rate.”
54 We conducted an analysis of a sample size necessary to achieve at least 0.95 power and 0.05 alpha error probability for t-tests on regression coefficients in a fixed-effects, linear, or logit regression model. This sample size analysis assumed a medium effect size and 10 regression predictors.
55 Eastin et al, “Living in a Big Data World”; Van Gool et al., “To Share or Not to Share?”
56 Mintel, “The Oversharing Generation”; Van Gool et al., “To Share or Not to Share?”
57 Schaar et al., “The Impact of User Diversity”; Tschersich et al., “On Gender Specific Perception.”
58 Duggan, “Men, Women Experience”; Schaar et al., “The Impact of User Diversity”; Lin and Hajli, “Information Sharing on Social Networking Sites.”
59 King, “Ensuring the Data-Rich Future of the Social Sciences.”
60 Wilkening, “Museums and Trust.”
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Justin Reeves Meyer
Justin Reeves Meyer is a Research Associate at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Meyer’s research focuses on the interactions between nonprofit institutions, communities, and urban space, and the role of museums in neighborhood change. His research has been published in leading urban policy and urban planning journals, including Journal of Planning Education and Research, Cities, Urban Affairs Review, and Journal of Urbanism, and featured in museum studies and neighborhood planning books such as Museums and Visitor Photography and Planning for AuthentiCITIES. Justin lectures at the Knowlton School of Architecture, at The Ohio State University, and holds degrees in environmental design from the University of Cambridge (MPhil) and product design (BSE) from Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. and master’s in urban planning, as well as a Certificate in Museum Studies, from the University of Michigan.
Joe E. Heimlich
Joe E. Heimlich, Ph.D. is Director for Research for the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) and is also a researcher in COSI’s Center for Research and Evaluation. He is an Academy Professor Emeritus with The Ohio State University where he was an Extension Specialist in museums and organizational capacity building, served as Leader, Environmental Science for OSUE, and held appointments in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, the Environmental Science Graduate Program, and the College of Education and Human Ecology. Joe’s research focus is lifelong learning about and in the environment, with interests in integration of social role, context, and conditions of the visit. He is the author of over 175 academic articles, books, and chapters, and 400 non-peer-reviewed academic publications.
E. Elaine T. Horr
E. Elaine T. Horr is Research Associate for the Lifelong Learning Group at COSI, has evaluation expertise in the front-end, developmental, and summative stages of program development and implementation, including STEM informal education programming. Dr. Horr is also proficient in exhibit evaluation and capacity building and focuses on working with science centers, nature centers, zoos, and aquariums. Dr. Horr, who earned her Ph.D. in environmental education and program evaluation at The Ohio State University, has taught biology at the high school and college levels and general science at the middle school level.
Rebecca F. Kemper
Rebecca F. Kemper is part of the Center for Research and Evaluation team at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) museum, located in Columbus, Ohio. Her research is focused upon the intersections of the twenty-first century knowledge economy, urbanism, and social justice concerns. Her work has been featured in The Royal Society (RSA), Journal of Urban Affairs, Carolina Planning Journal, the Columbus & Dayton African American News Journal, and most recently within The Routledge Handbook of International Planning Education Reader (1st edition). She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University’s Knowlton School in the City & Regional Planning program.
Katy Börner
Katy Börner is the Victor H. Yngve Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Information Science in the Departments of Intelligent Systems Engineering and Information Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering; core faculty of the Cognitive Science Program; and founding director of the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center (http://cns.iu.edu)—all at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Since 2005, she serves as a curator of the international Places & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit (http://scimaps.org).
Börner’s research focuses on the development of data analysis and visualization techniques for information access, understanding, and management. She is particularly interested in the formalization, measurement, and systematic improvement of people’s data visualization literacy; the study of the structure and evolution of scientific disciplines; the analysis and visualization of online activity; and the development of cyberinfrastructures for large-scale scientific collaboration and computation.
She holds an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Technology in Leipzig and a PhD in computer science from the University of Kaiserslautern. Börner became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012, a Humboldt Research Fellow in 2017, and an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow in 2018.