“Internet Research Ethics: Foundations, Law and Guidelines, and Cross-cultural Perspectives.” Ph.D.-level only. 4 ECTS
see <http://www.itu.dk/Internet/research/phd/courses/InternetResearchEthics/>
Ess has chaired the ethics working committee – representing some 11 nations both East and West – of the Association of Internet Researchers since 2000. The committee’s recommendations on “Ethical decision-making and Internet research” (<www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf>), approved by the AoIR membership in 2002, is the first relatively complete set of ethical guidelines for multidisciplinary online research that further recognizes the many diverse ethical decision-making traditions marking the multiple cultures represented through the Internet and the Web. Ess continues to work with the committee to expand and refine the guidelines. He has published extensively on online research ethics and frequently provides leadership in conferences and workshops designed to help researchers address the real-world ethical dilemmas they encounter in their work. Ess also consults with researchers confronting specific ethical issues, including those raised by their oversight authorities (such as Institutional Review Boards in the U.S.), and participates in the RESPECT Project, an E.C.-funded effort to develop ethical guidelines for socio-economic research within the European Union.
Monday (27): 13:00 – 16:00 / Friday (31): 9:00-12:00 noon / Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday: 9:00 - 16:00
Course description: We will examine the background, pertinent literatures, and core issues and debates in contemporary efforts to develop an Internet research ethics, in order to achieve both theoretical and practical goals. First, we will explore central theoretical issues, including: basic ethical decision-making procedures; basic concerns with human subjects protections, including privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent; and multiple meta-ethical questions - e.g., what analogies and metaphors do we use in thinking about human actors online? And: how far can we apply the extant codes - and from what disciplines - guiding research offline?
Second, we will take a praxis-oriented, case-study approach, using a range of cases now documented and discussed in the pertinent literatures, in order to develop the skills and judgment needed to apply proposed guidelines to real-world ethical dilemmas – both those discussed in the literature and those brought to the course by participants engaged in their own research. Using these cases as starting points, students may apply – and thus test in praxis – proposed ethical guidelines and approaches to ethical issues in contemporary online research, including their own.
A previous version of this course issued in participant papers being published as part of the first anthology devoted exclusively to Internet research ethics (Thorseth, 2003). I will encourage similar levels of research and writing.
One morning and one afternoon lecture (ca. 1 – 1.5 hrs) each day will clarify and connect the course readings, theories, and applications.
Lectures will alternate with student response, research, and presentation on theories, topics, issues, and case-studies of their choice.
First day: students will present – for no more than 10 minutes each – an overview of their background and interests as pertinent to participating in the course: in particular, each student is encouraged to sketch a possible case-study – perhaps based on his / her own experience – for our collective discussion.
Students will further be asked to develop a final project for presentation during the last part of the course. This may be a developed paper on the case-study initially proposed, or a presentation using other media, including Internet resources, that illustrates and examines important ethical topics and issues in online research.
No previous formal training in ethics is required.
In addition to their opening presentation (described above), students will be expected to have read an initial set of readings prior to the course start-up: these are denoted in the Bibliography below with an asterisk (“*”).
Additional readings – taken from the readings marked below with the pound sign (“#”) – will be provided in the course reading packet.
Provisional Outline / Schedule
1. Why Internet Research Ethics?
A. Five general problems (from AoIR 2001)
B. From the Nuremberg Trials to Virtual Identities: a Brief History of Research Ethics Guidelines
C. The Common List of Issues (Committee for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, American Association for the Advancement of Science)
Respect for persons (as foundational value for
all the rest)
[deontological value]
Privacy
[deontological value]
Confidentiality
[deontological value]
Informed Consent
[deontological value]
Anonymity/pseudonymity as these - along with 1-4 are complicated in Internet venues
Risk/Benefit to Participants [consequentialist approach]
Risk/Benefit to Social Good [consequentialist approach]
Public vs. Private space
Subject compensation
Justice (i.e., the fair distribution of the benefits of research)
Cross-cultural issues
Special/ vulnerable populations
Deception (pro-active)
Non-disclosure (passive)
Conflict of interest
Research misconduct
Additional issues:
Copyright – i.e., what is copyrighted in the data/information that a researcher studies / collects online – and what is his/her responsibility for protecting copyright?
??? (your issues / suggestions / ideas) ???
Reading for Tuesday a.m. (from course packet):
“Information Ethics” and privacy:
Diane Michelfelder
Deborah Johnson
Richard Spinello
Kling et al in Baird et al
2. Classical and Contemporary Ethics: an Introduction
A. Ethics per se
Deontology
Utilitarianism
Virtue Ethics
Ethics of Care / Feminist Ethics
Dialogical / discourse ethics
Open Source ethics
Confucian ethics
???
[SEE: “Ethics Updates” <http://ethics.acusd.edu/>, especially
Introduction to Moral Theory
Kant and Deontology
Utilitarianism
Aristotle and Virtue Ethics
Gender and Moral Theory
[Additional comments:
Feminist critiques of traditional Western ethics
B. “Information Ethics” (privacy and anonymity readings, again)
C. Meta-ethical issues
i) Analogies between online // offline worlds?
[Cf. Nara and Iseda 2004 on the correlation between ethical behavior online and offline.]
ii) Medical Human Subjects’ protection models (medical and social sciences) vis-à-vis humanities’ approaches
Methodology discussion, “4” [Wednesday p.m.]
iii) modernist assumptions about body-subject feminist/postmodernist “post-post-modernist”
iv) Embodiment
Ken Hillis
Barbara Becker
Katherine Hayles
Ess (2003)
v) Culture / relativism
NESH / EU / US contrasts
AoIR 2002, section VI (Addendum 2)
vi) ethical pluralism as applied to Internet research ethics
Ess 2002 (discussion of Elgesem, Walther on privacy)
vii) Divergence / Convergence? (Ess 2002)
viii) Global Ethics?
ix) So what were you expecting, anyway?
Guidelines, algorithms, and ethical judgment (phronesis)
(Ess 2002)
3. Technological / Analytical Interlude?
A. Is privacy possible on the Net? Jeremy Hunsinger on current web technologies.
B. What is chat, anyway? (Sveningsson, 2001)
C. Researchers’ professional responsibilities: professional ethics codes – both disciplinary and interdisciplinary (ACM 2003; RESPECT draft guidelines; American Sociological Association Code of Ethics <www.asanet.org/members/ecoderev.html>; others?
[NB: there may be important differences between: professional ethics / information ethics / online research ethics: see Floridi 2003, Floridi and Sanders, 2004.]
D. ???
4. Methodological Considerations: Researchers Weigh In…
A. Social scientists discuss research ethics:
Readings for Wednesday p.m. (review, choose 2-3)
Chris Mann (in Thorseth)
Annette Markham (in Thorseth)
[optional: Barkardjieva & Feenberg]
“Classics”
Christina Allen (1996)
Sharon Polancic Boehlefeld (1996)
Storm King (1996)
Elizabeth Reid (1996)
Lynne Schrum (1997)
B. More humanities-based approaches (review, choose 1-2):
Readings for Wednesday p.m.
Bruckman (2002)
White (2002)
O’Riordan and Bassett (2002)
5. Case-studies
A. Review and choose and/or find additional readings for Thursday a.m.
Gilstad (Thorseth) – telemedicine
Halverson, Lilliengren (Thorseth) – informed consent online
Löfberg, Ridderstrøm (Thorseth), Stern (Buchanan) – young people online
AoIR Case Study: what constitutes harm? Who is responsible?
Stern – encountering distressing information online
Hudson and Bruckman – chatroom research ethics
Scharf – naturalistic discourse research
B. Meta-questions:
i) Review these in light of
AoIR 2002 guidelines
RESPECT draft guidelines
NESH guidelines
a) How far do these documents succeed / fail in providing sufficient guidance for resolving the ethical issues involved?
b) Insofar as these documents are inadequate – how should they be revised / modified / expanded?
Thursday p.m. / Friday a.m.
6. Final projects (group / individual): development and presentation
Your issues / interests / concerns?
How to approach?
Analysis of issues – what ethical framework(s) / (inter)national guidelines?
Resolutions?
Remaining difficulties?
[Thursday p.m.: individual / group work; possible critiques of preliminary drafts / presentations
Friday a.m.: final presentations]
7. Wrap-up discussion
Internet research ethics – where do we go from here?
ACM (Association of Computing Machinery). 1993. ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Communications of the ACM. 36(2)(February): 99- 103.
Aguilar, John R. 1999/2000. Over the Rainbow: European and American Consumer Protection Policy and Remedy Conflicts on the Internet and a Possible Solution. International Journal of Communications of Law and Policy (Issue 4, Winter 1999/2000), 1-57.
AoIR (ethics working committee). 2001. Preliminary Report. <aoir.org/reports/ethics.html>
* ______. 2002. Ethical Guidelines for Internet Research. <www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf>
Akeroyd, Anne V. 1991. Personal Information and Qualitative Research Data: Some Practical and Ethical Problems arising from Data Protection Legislation. In Nigel G. Fielding and Raymond M. Lee (eds.), Using Computers in Qualitative Research, 89-106.
American Psychological Association. 2002. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.(revision of 1992 statement). (<http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html>.)
Ames, Roger T. and Henry Rosemont, Jr. (trans.) 1998. The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books.
American Sociological Association Code of Ethics. 1997. <www.asanet.org/member/ecoderev.html>
# Baird, Robert M., Reagan Ramsower, and Stuart E. Rosenbaum (eds.). 2000. Cyberethics: Social and Moral Issues in the Computer Age. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Bakardjieva, Maria and Andrew Feenberg. 2001. Involving the Virtual Subject: Conceptual, Methodological and Ethical Dimensions. Journal of Ethics and Information Technology 2 (4), 233-240.
* Barlow, John Perry. 1996. A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. <http://www.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html>
* Bassett, E. H. and Kathleen O’Riordan. 2002. Ethics of Internet Research: Contesting the Human Subjects Research Model. Ethics and Information Technology, 4 (3): 233-247. Available online: <www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_bassett.html>.
Baym, Nancy K. 1995. The Emergence of Community in Computer Mediated Communication. In Steven G. Jones (ed.), CyberSociety: Computer Mediated Communication and Community, 138-163. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
______. Interpersonal Life Online. 2002. In L. Lievrouw. & S. Livingstone (eds.), Handbook of New Media, 62-76. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
# Becker, Barbara. 2000. Cyborg, Agents and Transhumanists. Leonardo 33 (5): 361-65.
______. 2001. Sinn und Sinnlichkeit: Anmerkungen zur Eigendynamik und Fremdheit des eigenen Leibes [Sense and Sensibility: Remarks on the Distinctive Dynamics and Strangeness of One’s Own Body]. In L. Jäger (ed.), Mentalität und Medialität, 35-46. Munich: Fink Verlag.
Bell, David and Barbara M. Kennedy (eds). 2000. The Cybercultures Reader. New York and London: Routledge.
[Bynum, Terrell Ward (ed.) 2001. "Cyberspace, Privacy, and the Future of Computer Ethics," special issue of Ethics and Information Technology, 3:2.]
Berry, David. 2003. Internet Research: Privacy, Ethics and Alienation – An Open Source Approach. <www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hbp17/>
Boehlefeld, Sharon Polancic. 1996. Doing the Right Thing: Ethical Cyberspace Research. The Information Society 12 (2), 141-152.
Bolter, Jay David. 2001. Identity. In T. Swiss (ed.), Unspun, 17-29. New York: New York University Press.
Borgmann, Albert. 1999. Holding Onto Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bruckman, Amy. 2002. Ethical Guidelines for Research Online. <http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/ethics/>
* ______. 2002. Studying the Amateur Artist: A Perspective on Disguising Data Collected in Human Subjects Research on the Internet. Ethics and Information Technology, 4 (3) 217-231. Available online: <www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_bruckman.html>.
Bucher, Hans-Jürgen. 2002. The Power of the Audience: Interculturality, Interactivity and Trust in Internet Communication. In Fay Sudweeks and Charles Ess (eds.), Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication 2002 (Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication, Montréal, Canada, 12-15 July 2002), 3-14. Murdoch, WA: School of Information Technology, Murdoch University. Available online < http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/>
Bynum, Terrell Ward. 2001. Computer Ethics: Its Birth and its Future. Ethics and Information Technology 3 (2): 109-112.
* Capurro, Rafael and Christoph Pingel. 2002. Ethical Issues of Online Communication Research. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(3) 189-194. Available online: <www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_capurro.html>.
Code of Federal Regulations Title 45, Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Office For Protection From Research Risks, Part 46, Protection Of Human Subjects. <http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm>
Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data. 1995. <http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/privacy/law_en.htm>
Dreyfus, Hubert. 2001. On the Internet. New York: Routledge.
* Elgesem, Dag. 2002. What is special about the ethical issues in online research? Ethics and Information Technology, 4(3) 195-203. Available online: <www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_elgesem.html>.
[Ess, Charles. 2000. We are the Borg: the Web as Agent of Cultural Assimilation or Renaissance? <www.ephilosopher.com/120100/philtech/philtech.htm>]
* ______. 2002. Introduction. Special issue on Internet research ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 4. (3): 177-188. <http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_ess.html>.
______. 2003a. Are We There Yet? Emerging Ethical Guidelines for Online Research. In Sarina Chen and Jon Hall (eds.), Online Social Research: Methods, Issues, and Ethics. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.
# ______. 2003b. Beyond Contemptus Mundi and Cartesian Dualism. in May Thorseth (ed.), Applied Ethics in Internet Research, 13-29. Trondheim: Programme for Applied Ethics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
# ______. 2003c. What is ‘Harm’ Online – and Who’s Responsible for Detecting and Mending It? (An anonymized case-study, for use only in teaching environments, with the permission of the author and the senior researcher.)
Floridi, Luciano.. 2003. What is the Philosophy of Information? (Introduction). In Floridi (ed), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information. Oxford: Blackwell. Available online: <http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pci/downloads/introduction.pdf>
Floridi, Luciano and J.W. Sanders. 2004. Internet Ethics: the Constructionist Values of Homo Poieticus. In Robert Cavalier (ed.), The Internet and Our Moral Lives. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
[Hamelink, Cees. 2000. The Ethics of Cyberspace. London: Sage.]
# Hayles, Katherine. 1999. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
# Hillis, Ken. 1999. Digital Sensations: Space, Identity and Embodiment in Virtual Reality. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press.
Hongladarom, S. 2001. Global culture, local cultures and the Internet: the Thai example. In C. Ess (Ed.). Culture, Technology, Communication: Towards an Intercultural Global Village, 307-324. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Hudson, James M. and Amy Bruckman. 2003. “Go Away”: Perceived Harm and the Ethics of Researching Chatrooms. Unpublished manuscript.
# Johnson, Deborah. 2001. Computer Ethics, 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Jones, Steven G. 2003. Do Ethics Scale? Internet Research, Ethics and Rights. In Sarina Chen and Jon Hall (eds.), Online Social Research: Methods, Issues, and Ethics. New York: Peter Lang.
King, Storm. 1996. Researching Internet Communities: Proposed Ethical Guidelines for the Reporting of Results. The Information Society, 12: 119–128.
# Kirkup, Gill, Linda Janes, Kath Woodward, and Fiona Hovenden (eds.). 2000. The Gendered Cyborg: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge.
Li, Chenyang. 2002. Revisiting Confucian Jen Ethics and Feminist Care Ethics: A Reply. Hypatia: a Journal of Feminist Philosophy (Winter) 130-140.
# Michelfelder, Diane. 2001. The moral value of informational privacy in cyberspace. Ethics and Information Technology 3(2): 129-135.
[Moravec, Hans. 1988. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.]
Nara, Yumiko and Tetsuji Iseda. 2004.. An Empirical Study of the Structure of Behavior in Information Ethics on the Internet: Comparative Research between Japan, US and Singapore. In Andrew Feenberg and Darin Barney (eds.), Community in the Digital Age: Philosophy and Practice. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
NESH (National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, Norway). 2001. Guidelines for research ethics in the social sciences, law and the humanities. <http://www.etikkom.no/NESH/guidelines.htm>]
[Offenbach, Stuart. Research on the Internet: Issues and questions (presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics, Cincinnati, OH, March, 2001.]
Pohl, Karl-Heinz. 2002. Chinese and Western Values: Reflections on a Cross-Cultural Dialogue on a Universal Ethics. In Rolf Elberfeld and Günter Wohlfart (eds.), Komparative Ethik: Das gute Leben zwischen den Kulturen, 213-232. München: Chora Verlag.
Raymond, Eric. 2001. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. In Richard A. Spinello and Herman T. Tavani (eds.), Readings in CyberEthics, 309-338. London: Jones and Bartlett.
Reid, Elizabeth. 1996. Informed Consent in the Study of On-Line Communities: A Reflection on the Effects of Computer-Mediated Social Research. The Information Society (12), 169-174.
Reidenberg, Joel R. 2000. Resolving Conflicting International Data Privacy Rules in Cyberspace, STANFORD LAW REVIEW, 52 (2000):1315-1376.
Reinisch, Holger. 2003. International and Intercultural Competencies in Vocational Contexts: What is it and how to teach and learn it? Download from RESPECT conference website <http://www.respectproject.org/events/budprog.php>
* RESPECT Project. 2003. <http://www.respectproject.org/main/index.php>
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Scharf, Barbara F. 1999. Beyond Netiquette: The Ethics of Doing Naturalistic Discourse Research on the Internet. In Steve Jones (ed.), Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, 243 – 256. London: Sage.
Schrum, Lynne. 1997. Ethical Research in the Information Age: Beginning the Dialog. Computers in Human Behavior, 13 (2), pp. 117-125. London: Sage.
Schryvers, Ellen and Tom Vandenbrande. 2003. Conducting European socio-economic research: which competencies are needed? Download from RESPECT conference website <http://www.respectproject.org/events/budprog.php>
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[Sobchack, Vivian. 1995. Beating the Meat/Surviving the Text, or How to Get Out of This Century Alive. In Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows (eds.), Cyberspace/Cyberbodies /Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, 205-14. London: Sage Publications.]
# Spinello, Richard. 2000. Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace. Boston: Jones and Bartlett.
# [Spinello, Richard and Herman T. Tavani (eds.). 2001. Readings in Cyberethics. Boston: Jones and Bartlett.
Stald, Gitte and Thomas Tufte (Eds.). 2002. Global Encounters: Media and Cultural Transformation. Luton Press.
Stern, Susannah R. 2003. Encountering distressing information in online research: a consideration of legal and ethical responsibilities. new media and society vol 5 (2): 249-266.
______. 2003. Studying Adolescents Online: A Consideration of Ethical Issues. In Elizabeth A. Buchanan (ed.), Virtual Research Ethics: Issues and Controversies. Hershey, PA: Idea Group.
# Sveningsson, Malin. 2001. Creating a Sense of Community: Experiences from a Swedish Web Chat (dissertation). The Tema Institute – Department of Communication Studies. Linköping University. Linköping, Sweden.
[Tavani, Herman T., Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ethics: A bibliography of recent books. Ethics and Information Technology 3:77-81, 2001. (Annotates 35 recent books "that consider ethics, social, legal, and policy issues in information and communication technology" (77).)]
[______. Computing, Ethics, and Social Responsibility: A Bibliography (CPSR Press, 1996), <http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/biblio/>.]
# Thorseth, May (ed.). 2003. Applied Ethics in Internet Research. Trondheim: Programme for Applied Ethics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
University of Bristol. N.d. "Self Assessment Questionnaire for Researchers Using Personal Data." <http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Secretary/datapro.htm>
* Walther, Joe. 2002. Research Ethics in Internet-Enabled Research: Human Subjects Issues and Methodological Myopia. Ethics and Information Technology, 4 (3): 205-216. Available online: <www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_walther.html>.
* White, Michele. Representations or People? 2002. Ethics and Information Technology, 4 (3) 249-266. Available online: <www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_white.html>.
Wiener, Norbert. 1948. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Boston, MA: Technology Press.
Yu, Ji-yuan. (1988) forthcoming. Virtue: Confucius and Aristotle. (Originally published in Philosophy East and West [2]), in The Examined Life: The Chinese Perspective. Binghamton, NY: Global Publications.
Yu, Ji-yuan and Nicholas Bunnin. 2001. Saving the Phenomena: An Aristotelian Method in Comparative Philosophy. In M. Bo (ed.), Two Roads to Wisdom? – Chinese Philosophy and Analytical Philosophy, 293-312. LaSalle, IL: Open Court.
Berliner Aufträger für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit. <http://www.datenschutz-berlin.de/>, including:
Modern Data Protection Law Report: Summary of results in theses, <http://www.datenschutz-berlin.de/recht/de/bdsg/summary-gutachten.pdf>
Centre de Recherches Informatique et Droit, Facultes Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur, Belgium. <http://www.droit.fundp.ac.be/crid/>
European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies. <http://europa.eu.int/comm/european_group_ethics/index_en.htm>. (Includes a useful list of links to national ethics committees, with an emphasis on bioethics)
European Union, Science and Society Program: Ethics. <http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/ethics/ethics_en.html>
IACAP (International Association for Computing and Philosophy). <http://iacap.org> - site still under construction
ICIE (International Center for Information Ethics): <http://icie.zkm.de>. (Includes a very extensive list of resources)
INSEIT (International Society for Ethics and Information Technology). <www.inseit.org> - site still under construction
Institut für Informations-, Telekommunications- und Medienrecht, Universität Münster. <http://www.uni-muenster.de/Jura.tkr/ns.htm>