Research Ethics

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Research Ethics

• November 2nd 2005
• Kirsten Ribu

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Research Ethics

• The researcher's increased consciousness of his
  or her role will translate into more ethical
  action.
• http//www.ori.hhs.gov/education/products/montana_
  round1/issues.html

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Ethical issues

• Some ethical issues relating to research
  contracts have to do with who owns or controls
  the intellectual property resulting from the
  contract
• What if the researcher's conclusions are not
  consistent with the company's aims?
• Who controls what is published and how it is
  published?
• Is the researcher obligated to submit results to
  the company or agency prior to publication or is
  she disallowed from publishing results at all?

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Compliance and Ethics

• Compliance and ethics are both necessary for the
  conduct of responsible research.
• Compliance means that investigators and
  institutions follow the rules that are set out
  for them.
• Rules regarding research come from the federal
  government, from funders, and from the
  institution itself.
• The essential elements of compliance are that an
  individual researcher knows the rules and that he
  or she is motivated to follow the rules.

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Ethical Behaviour

• Ethical behavior requires more than simply
  following the rules.
• Ethics is the study of how human action affects
  other humans, animals,society, or the ecosystem.
• Ethical analysis provides a way of making sense
  of rules and regulations.

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Fabrication

• Fabrication, for example, is a type of research
  misconduct. It is legally and ethically
  prohibited.
• Fabrication is the act of making up data or
  results, then recording or reporting them as part
  of the research record. (Who did this recently??)
• Fabrication is ethically wrong because it is
  likely to lead to harm to others.
• It is legally required for funding agencies and
  research institutions to take actions against
  researchers who fabricate.

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Research

• Research, is an "activity designed to test a
  hypothesis, permit conclusions to be drawn, and
  thereby to develop or contribute to generalized
  knowledge (expressed, for example, in theories,
  principles, and statements of relationships).
• Research is usually described in a formal
  protocol that sets forth an objective and a set
  of procedures designed to reach that objective

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Collaboration and Competition

• Scientific research and discovery is a model for
  collaborative effort.
• Each new discovery is built upon the blocks of
  earlier discoveries.
• Each researcher is dependent upon the work of
  researchers who have come before.
• Increasingly, individual research projects
  require skill sets and knowledge bases from a
  variety of different disciplines.

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Case study 1

• http//www.ori.hhs.gov/education/products/montana_
  round1/issuescase2.html

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Research is competitive

• Researchers compete with one another for funding
  from a limited pool of resources
• Labs that are working on similar questions
  compete to be the first to confirm and publish
  particular results.
• Institutions and labs compete for top
  researchers, post-docs, and students.
• Students often feel that they are in competition
  for projects, credit, mentoring time and
  attention.

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Competition cont..

• The researcher is expected both to share data
  with other researchers and to be the first, when
  possible, to publish accurate results.
• The researcher must continually choose between
  these.

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Case study 2

• http//www.ori.hhs.gov/education/products/montana_
  round1/intercase1.html

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Communication

• Clarity and openness will not solve all ethical
  problems .
• . but being transparent about one's intent,
  motives, and reasons for a chosen action provide
  good protection against unethical action.

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Professional Responsibility

• "If you are doing research with your own funds
  and only for your own enjoyment, you may, if you
  wish, make things up, or change the data points a
  little to make things come out the way that you
  would like.
• Just as with solitaire, you might prefer to win
  without cheating, but sometimes you just want to
  win.
• There is nothing wrong with conducting your
  private research as you might play a game of
  solitaire as long as you don't tell anyone that
  you discovered something new or prove some
  hypothesis.
• It is only in making a false claim that you have
  done something wrong." Philosopher Bernard Gert
• Does this make sense?

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• Research is a process, using defensible
  methodology that is done on behalf of society, in
  search of knowledge that can be shared and used.
• Research is usually supported through public or
  private funds.
• Research matters because it is judged to be
  important by knowledgeable peers.

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• Just as researchers have responsibilities to
  their colleagues and to the institution in which
  they work, they have responsibilities to
  potential and actual funders, to the audiences
  and publishers to whom they submit their work,
  and to peers.

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Objectivity and accuracy

• "Objectivity, accuracy, and acknowledgement of
  uncertainties in research work do not impose
  merely the negative requirement that research
  scientists avoid deliberate bias in their own
  work.
• Objectivity also requires that they attempt to
  meet a positive demand to present results in
  such a way as to avoid their misuses and
  misapplication by others and to speak out when
  others appear to misuse or misinterpret them."
• Shrader-Frechette, K (1994). Ethics of
  Scientific Research. Lanham, MD Rowman
  Littlefield Publishers, p. 55.

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Next week

• Lecture on Open Software by Gisle Hannemyhr