Internet Research Ethics: Discourse, Inquiry, and Policy

该项目通过科学与社会计划的伦理与价值观研究部分资助，将涉及跨学科和跨学科的研究。主要研究人员将围绕互联网研究伦理（IRE）的讨论提升到新的水平，使所有学科的研究人员，机构审查委员会（IRB）和政策制定者受益。 具体而言，他们将进行详尽的调查研究，将独立评价纳入背景，并通过使用调查和定性研究方法确定该领域的基准，以确定在美国指定的博士/研究型大学内的机构审查委员会是否有审查基于互联网的研究协议的政策和程序和/或准则;并通过研讨会、演示和在线教育模块，为机构审查委员会、研究人员、政策制定者和行政人员提供信息、工程和评价领域的最佳实践指南和政策。 项目执行人还将开发和提供一个综合性的在线信息交换中心，为独立评价的理论和实践方面提供教育和书目资源。 董事将制定一个混合方法的调查IRB管理人员和/或董事会成员在综合博士机构。该调查将询问一般与独立选举有关的协议的百分比，特别是关于独立选举的工作知识;询问独立选举协议的政策和程序;探讨隐私、匿名、保密和身份等问题，并将探讨公共和私人互联网空间的问题。将在IRE文献和研究的主体内分析和情境化遵守人类受试者保护法规。将使用封闭式和开放式问题获取数据。将通过统计测试和对开放式问题的定性评价，汇编和分析数据，以了解趋势和最佳做法。这种混合方法将对IRB和IRE的状态进行最全面的审查。 尚未对IRB关于IRE的政策和程序进行详尽的调查;该项目的新奇很重要，显然需要进行研究。拟议项目的知识价值涉及到使用应用伦理学来解决人类受试者保护中紧迫的现实问题的哲学方法，并继续制定实用的解决方案，不仅是一阶伦理问题，而且是跨学科合作的二阶问题。特别是随着互联网越来越多地与我们生活的日常结构交织在一起，这种研究肯定会扩大并在各种学科中提供新的重要见解。 该项目将有助于以道德上负责任的方式进行此类研究所需的重要思考和辩论。该项目旨在对应用伦理学产生广泛影响，包括信息和计算机伦理学领域;来自不同学科的研究人员的现实世界实践; IRB寻求确保在新环境和背景下保护人类受试者的实践和政策;因此，无论是在所学到的信息方面，还是在保护人类受试者的道德规范方面，互联网研究领域呈指数级增长的质量都有所提高。

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.