{"id":34,"date":"2010-04-24T20:28:05","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T03:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tabithahart.net\/?p=34"},"modified":"2010-04-30T17:42:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T00:42:38","slug":"34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/?p=34","title":{"rendered":"Skype for distal interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

The case study that I\u2019m currently working on required me to conduct interviews with a dozen people spread all across the United States.\u00a0 Due to budget and time constraints, it would have been impossible for me do these interviews face-to-face.\u00a0 Instead, I opted to conduct the interviews using Skype<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The basic Skype service, which is free and easy to download, allows computer-to-computer connection between Skype users.\u00a0 The connections can be made using IM, voice, and video.\u00a0 Using Skype was a very cost-effective method of conducting these interviews (an important criterion for a researcher working on a tight budget) and was also extremely convenient in that it allowed me to easily record and archive the interviews.<\/p>\n

To use Skype you have to have some sort of device on which the program is loaded (a laptop, PC, Ipod touch, etc.) and you have to have an active Internet connection.\u00a0 For most of my interviewees this wasn\u2019t a problem, and so we used the free version of Skype to connect computer-to-computer.<\/p>\n

Some of my interviewees, however, either wanted me to call them on their cell\/home phones or they wanted to call me. \u00a0Skype can accommodate both of these scenarios. \u00a0What I did was subscribe to two of Skype\u2019s additional services.<\/p>\n

First, I purchased a subscription to Skype\u2019s \u201cUnlimited US and Canada\u201d service, which lets you place an unlimited number of calls to phones in the United States and Canada.\u00a0 At only $2.95\/month, this was even cheaper than my landline. (Which I have since canceled, incidentally.\u00a0 Take that, Qwest.)\u00a0 With this service I could log in to Skype, select the \u201ccall phones\u201d function, and easily call the cell phone or landline number that my interviewees had given me.<\/p>\n

For those interviewees who wanted to call me, I set up an online Skype number.\u00a0 The way this works is that you essentially buy a phone number from Skype.\u00a0 The phone number can be \u201cin\u201d one of 25 countries.\u00a0 I bought a US American number, meaning that the international code of my number is \u201c1,\u201d and it has a three-digit area code, just like any phone number in the United States. \u00a0If, however, you were doing telephonic interviews with people in Chile, Estonia, or Sweden, it would make sense for you to buy a number associated with those countries, so that your callers would not be incurring any international charges when they placed the call to you.<\/p>\n

Of course, to receive calls placed to your online Skype number, you need to have the device which Skype is loaded on switched on,\u00a0and<\/strong> you need to be connected to the Internet, and<\/strong> you need to have Skype running.\u00a0 If any one of these conditions is not met and someone tries to call your online number, they won\u2019t be able to connect with you.\u00a0 Instead, their call will just go to your Skype voice mail account, which comes along with the service.<\/p>\n

In my next posts I\u2019ll write about Audio Hijack Pro<\/a>, which I used to record my Skype interviews (with my interviewees’ informed consent, of course). \u00a0I\u2019ll also write about obtaining oral informed consent in the interview scenario I\u2019ve described here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The case study that I\u2019m currently working on required me to conduct interviews with a dozen people spread all across the United States.\u00a0 Due to budget and time constraints, it would have been impossible for me do these interviews face-to-face.\u00a0 Instead, I opted to conduct the interviews using Skype. The basic Skype service, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}