Building a Database while Considering Research Ethics in Sign Language Communities

We are constructing an American Sign Language ID-gloss Database, which will enable sign language researchers and Deaf community members to access standard glosses for common signs. Since we are working with a language used by a community that has historically been marginalized during the research process, we feel the need to include an ethical framework for working with the Sign Language community as we consider best practices for developing sign language corpora. We will refer to the guidelines, Sign Language Communities' Terms of Reference (SLCTR), outlined in Harris, Holmes & Mertens (2009). Before making the database available to the ASL community, we plan to evaluate how members will use it and what they need from the research team to facilitate such use. This evaluation will go a long way towards ensuring that ownership of the research data lies with the ASL community. Such a reflexive evaluation of ethical practices is crucial from the beginning stages and throughout the research process. This means the ASL community is directly involved in the research process, is able to access aspects of the entire process, and can have a hand in the construction of knowledge about their own language, community and culture.