Research Methodology Ethics for engineering.pptx

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1. Research ethics Research Methodology

2. Outline Introduction Researchers Norms Universalism Communism Disinterestedness Organized skepticism Scientific Misconduct Co-authorship Forging, trimming, cooking data Plagiarism Issues Concerning Research Participants Issues Concerning Sponsors

3. Introduction What is research ethics? Research: The activity that enable us to test hypothesis and produce valid knowledge. Ethics: Specifies the way researchers ought to conduct themselves when pursuing research.

4. Research ethics as professional ethics Research Ethics: Specifies the way researchers ought to conduct themselves when pursuing research Professional ethics: the norms and values that constitutes and regulate professional action (relation to other researchers, employers, society or contractors). What is good professional behavior? What is good research? Research ethics specifies what good research practice is. Introduction

5. There are two aspects of ethical issues in research: The individual values of the researcher relating to honesty, frankness and personal integrity. The researcher’s treatment of other people involved in the research, relating to informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity and courtesy. Introduction

6. Ethical Researcher Knows what is right be well informed, well trained Wants to do what is right strong moral character, take pride in high standards Overcomes temptations Overcome weak will, any other temptations other than the objective of the research Introduction

7. Ethics Committees Ethics committees may be established at organization level or national level. The role of ethics committees is to oversee the research carried out in their organizations in relation to ethical issues. It is they who formulate the research ethics code of conduct and monitor its application in the research carried out by members of their organizations. National committees exist in the field of agriculture and medicine who provide approval or ethical clearance in the fields of study. Introduction

8. Researchers Norms Universalism Communism Disinterestedness Organized skepticism Robert Merton’s classical article on the “Ethos of science” from 1942

9. Universalism – objectivism Truth claims should be subjected to investigations by means of established criteria (not contingent, personal or context dependent criteria) The researchers arguments, talents and facts should be the basis for assessment, Not cultural and political issues Not the researchers sex, religion, race or political preferences etc. Researchers Norms

10. Communism Research results should be treated as common property We only give honor to the one who found something first Researchers Norms

11. Disinterestedness – Neutrality Researchers should not pay particular attention to or represent particular groups or personal interests Researchers should take a disinterested stance: be neutral Researchers Norms

12. Organized skepticism Systematic, institutionalized scrutiny and careful critical assessment of results Critical Peer review Internal control (how to control experts?) Researchers Norms

13. Scientific Misconduct Related to: Co-authorship Forging, trimming, cooking Plagiarism

14. Co-authorship Why has co-authorship recently become an important topic? Publish or perish – institutionalized measure of quality Increased proportion of co-authored articles Increased number of co-authors in individual papers Scientific Misconduct

15. Some forms of illegitimate authorships Honor authorship: Including authors, to honor their role, for instance, in building the team or the laboratory. May also make the article more “heavy” and likely to be accepted. Guest/gift authorship: Offering authorship as a gift, perhaps in return for receiving funding or expecting a similar gift in return from a fellow academic. Pressured authorship: Like when senior persons use their position to put pressure on a junior to include them as an author when they do not qualify. Ghost authorship: Failure to include a name who should have been included. Scientific Misconduct

16. ALL authors should Give substantial contributions to conception or design, or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data. Contribute to text participating in writing or critical revision of article. Approve final version. Be accountable for the part of the work they have done and be able to identify other co-authors responsibility . Scientific Misconduct

17. Preventive strategies Good to have authorship policy at project or team level Clear between authors share of responsibility Clear agreements between MSc or PhD student and supervisor (mainly supervisors responsibility) Open communication between authors All authors responsible for the content? Clarify/explain the role of individual contributors ( eg . “Nature’s” policy) Example: author A designed the experiment, author B assembled input data, author B and C ran the model and analyzed output data, author A and D administrated the experiment and wrote the paper Scientific Misconduct

18. Forging, cooking, trimming Forging: Recording of observations never made Cooking: Selecting data to achieve agreement Trimming of little bits here and there from those observations which differ most in excess from the mean. Silently rejecting or ignoring evidence which happens to be contrary to one’s beliefs, or being too selective in the data used and in presenting the results of the analysis constitutes a breach of integrity. Scientific Misconduct

19. Plagiarism Turning in someone else's work as your own Copying words/phrases/sentences or ideas from someone else without giving credit Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit Giving incorrect/insufficient information about the source of a quotation Scientific Misconduct

20. Studies made in 2006 in Europe show that 40% of students admitted plagiarizing written sources ..(like copying an internet text). 50% considered this as “trivial” cheating 22% admitted cheating in a “serous” way, like copying from another student on a test, using unauthorized notes or helping someone else to cheat on a test. Scientific Misconduct

21. Why plagiarism is a recurrent topic Cut-and paste – access to electronic sources Transition from student to researcher often creates difficulties in terms of style of writing. Border-line between plagiarism and research is often difficult (as research is to “stand on shoulders” of others) Scientific Misconduct

22. Common in MSc thesis or PhD dissertations Lack of competence in referring source material. Copying text, examples, argumentative structure that appears as “common knowledge”. Re-using models of calculations Avoiding such problems: Understand what you want to present completely; and Explain the concepts, problems, issues from scratch using your own words and lines of arguments. Scientific Misconduct

23. Avoiding Plagiarism Obviously, in no field of research can you rely entirely on your own ideas, concepts and theories. You can avoid accusations of plagiarism by acknowledging the sources of these features and their originators within your own text. This is called citation. Citation caters for direct quotations or ideas etc. from the work of others gathered from a wide variety of sources (such as books, journals, conferences, talks, interviews, TV programmes etc.), and should be meticulously used. You should also indicate the assistance of others and any collaboration with others, usually in the form of a written acknowledgement at the beginning or end of the report. Scientific Misconduct

24. Issues Concerning Research Participants Consent You should treat participants with due ethical consideration, in the way you choose them, deal with them personally and how you use the information they provide. In many cases, participants choose freely whether to take part in a survey by simply responding to the form or not. There should not be any restriction of their freedom to refuse. Pressure might be exerted on participants if they are left too little time for due consideration which might also result in them regretting taking part. Obviously, you should avoid dishonest means of persuasion, such as posing as an official, making unrealistic and untrue promises.

25. Risk of Harm The principle behind ethical research is to cause no harm and, if possible, to produce some gain for the participants in the project and the wider field. Therefore the researcher should assess the potential of the chosen research methods and their outcomes for causing harm or gain. This involves recognizing what the risks might be and choosing methods that minimize these risks, and avoiding making any revelations that could in any way be harmful to the reputation, dignity or privacy of the subjects. Issues Concerning Research Participants

26. Honesty You should not take familiarity so far as to deceive in order to extract information that the participant might later regret giving. Neither should you raise unrealistic expectations in order to benefit yourself. Honesty is a basic tenet of ethically sound research so any type of deception and use of covert methods should be ruled out. Although you might argue that certain information of benefit to society can only be gained by these methods due to obstruction by people or organizations that are not willing to risk being scrutinized, how can you be sure of the benign consequences of the actions? The risks involved make the use of deception and covert methods extremely questionable, and in some cases even dangerous. Issues Concerning Research Participants

27. Incentive Is it ethical to provide incentives to respondents to share information with you? Some researchers provide incentives to participants for their participation in a study, feeling this to be quite proper as participants are giving their time. Others think that the offering of inducements is unethical. Most people do not participate in a study because of incentives, but because they realize the importance of the study. Therefore, giving a small gift after having obtained your information, as a token of appreciation, is not unethical. However, giving a present before data collection is unethical. Issues Concerning Research Participants

28. Confidentiality Sharing information about a respondent with others for purposes other than research is unethical. Sometimes you need to identify your study population to put your findings into context. In such a situation you need to make sure that at least the information provided by respondents is kept anonymous. It is unethical to identify an individual respondent and the information provided by him/her. Therefore, you need to ensure that after the information has been collected, its source cannot be identified. Issues Concerning Research Participants

29. Issues Concerning Sponsors The funds may be given from organizations to develop a programme or evaluate it; to examine its effectiveness and efficiency; to study the impact of a policy; to test a product; to study the behaviour of a group or community; or to study a phenomenon, issue or attitude. Sometimes there may be direct or indirect controls exercised by sponsoring organisations . They may select the methodology, prohibit the publication of ‘what was found’ or impose other restrictions on the research that may stand in the way of obtaining and disseminating accurate information. Both the imposition and acceptance of these controls and restrictions are unethical, as they constitute interference and could amount to the sponsoring organisation tailoring research findings to meet its vested interests.

30. How is the sponsoring body going to use the information? Sometimes sponsoring organisations use research as a pretext for obtaining management’s agenda. It is unethical to let your research be used as a reason for justifying management decisions when the research findings do not support them. However, it is recognised that it may be extremely difficult or even impossible for a researcher to prevent this from happening. Issues Concerning Sponsors

31. Material mainly taken from NTNU Research Methodology course material on Research Ethics.