Internet Research Ethics: Discourse, Inquiry, and Policy

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This project, funded through the Ethics and Values Studies component of the Science and Society Program will involve interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research. The principal investigators will elevate the discussion surrounding Internet Research Ethics (IRE) to new levels benefiting researchers from all disciplines, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), and policy makers. Specifically, they will conduct exhaustive survey research studies that contextualize IRE and establish benchmarks in the field by using survey and qualitative research methodologies to determine if Institutional Review Boards within Carnegie-designated Doctoral/Research Universities Extensive institutions have policies and procedures and/or guidelines for reviewing Internet-based research protocols; and by providing best practices guidelines and policies for IRBs, researchers, policy makers, and administrators in the area of IRE through workshops and presentations and online educational modules. The PIs will also develop and provide a comprehensive online clearinghouse of educational and bibliographic resources for theoretical and practical aspects of IRE. The directors will develop a mixed-method survey for IRB administrators and/or board members at Comprehensive Doctoral Institutions. The survey will ask about the percentage of IRE-related protocols in general, and in particular, about working knowledge of IRE; ask for policies and procedures for IRE protocols; explore issues such as privacy, anonymity, confidentiality, and identity, and issues of public and private Internet spaces will be explored. Adherence to human subjects protections regulations will be analyzed and contextualized within the body of IRE literature and research. Both closed-ended and open-ended questions will be used to obtain data. The data will be compiled and analyzed for trends and best practices, through both statistical tests and qualitative evaluation of the open-ended questions. This mixed-method approach will provide the most comprehensive review of the state of IRBs and IRE. An exhaustive survey of IRB policies and procedures on IRE has not yet been conducted; the novelty of this project is significant and a need for the research is evident. The intellectual merits of the proposed project relate to the philosophical approach of using applied ethics to address pressing, real-world issues in human subjects protections, and continuing to develop practical resolutions not only to first-order ethical issues, but also to second-order issues of interdisciplinary collaborations. Especially as the Internet becomes increasingly interwoven into more and more of the everyday fabric of our lives, such research will certainly expand and contribute new and important insights in a variety of disciplines. The project will contribute to the crucial reflection and debate needed to pursue such research in ethically responsible ways. The project is designed to effect a broad impact on applied ethics, including the fields of Information and Computer Ethics; the real-world practices of researchers from a variety of disciplines; the practices and policies of IRBs seeking to ensure human subjects protections in novel environments and contexts; and thereby to the quality, both in terms of information learned and ethical norms of human subjects protections maintained, of the exponentially expanding fields of Internet research.