RAPID: Assessing Ethical Challenges in Conducting Do-it-yourself (DIY) Science During the COVID-19 Pandemic

美国努力确保其赞助的研究符合道德，要求对某些类型的研究进行监督，例如涉及人类或动物的研究。然而，个人在家中、车库或社区实验室进行的DIY科学研究通常不受这些研究伦理法规的约束。DIY社区的参与者可能遇到的伦理挑战在COVID-19大流行中尤为突出，这促使一个国际DIY研究人员团体走到一起，寻求诊断和治疗。由于参与这些努力的DIY者主要通过公开的在线渠道进行交流，因此大流行提供了一个极好的机会，可以在集中和加速的环境中了解更多关于DIY研究中的伦理问题。该项目旨在评估不受监管的DIY研究社区如何在持续的大流行期间应对道德挑战。它将导致更好地了解DIY科学家如何识别，处理和解决他们在危机中的工作中的伦理问题，并实际了解在不受监管的领域存在哪些伦理研究的障碍或促进因素。通过在线观察和访谈，该项目研究了开源COVID-19项目的参与者如何协商三个核心伦理问题：生物安全和危害，验证和复制，以及作者身份和信用。第一阶段包括在一个名为Just One Giant Lab（JOGL）的国际DIY科学平台上分析项目成员之间的数字通信，数千名个人正在合作开发开源COVID-19项目。第二阶段涉及对约40名JOGL参与者进行后续访谈，以探讨参与者与道德操守有关的意见，如何解决或无法解决道德操守挑战，以及是否对最终结果达成一致和满意。访谈将探讨参与者对不受监管的伦理研究的障碍和促进因素的看法，以及他们在这种情况下会发现哪些工具有用。这项研究将大大提高我们对危机时期不受监管的研究中伦理问题如何以及在何处出现的理解，以及开放科学社区的参与者如何应对这些挑战。该项目将产生开发更好的工具和方法的建议，以帮助确保DIY研究的道德行为，并将协助监管机构和政策制定者在不受监管的研究中制定更明智的道德方法。该提案由BIO和OISE董事会通过ER 2计划资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The United States works to ensure that the research it sponsors is conducted ethically by requiring oversight of certain kinds of research, such as that involving humans or animals. However, do-it-yourself (DIY) scientific research conducted by individuals in their homes, garages, or community labs often is not subject to these research ethics regulations. The ethical challenges that participants in DIY communities may encounter are particularly salient in the COVID-19 pandemic, which has spurred an international group of DIY researchers to come together in pursuit of diagnostics and treatments. Because DIYers participating in these efforts are primarily communicating via publicly accessible online outlets, the pandemic offers an excellent opportunity to learn more about ethical issues in DIY research in a concentrated and accelerated setting. The project aims to assess how unregulated DIY research communities negotiate ethical challenges during an ongoing pandemic. It will lead to a better understanding of how DIY scientists identify, approach, and resolve ethical issues in their work in crises, and to practical understanding of what barriers or facilitators of ethical research exist in unregulated domains. Through online observations and interviews, this project examines how participants in open-source COVID-19 projects negotiate three central ethical issues: biosafety and harm, validation and replication, and authorship and credit. Phase 1 consists of analyzing digital communications amongst project members on an international DIY science platform called Just One Giant Lab (JOGL), where thousands of individuals are collaborating on open-source COVID-19 projects. Phase 2 involves conducting follow-up interviews with approximately 40 JOGL participants to probe participants’ ethics-related comments, how ethical challenges were resolved or were unable to be resolved, and whether there was agreement with and satisfaction about eventual outcomes. The interviews will explore participants’ views regarding barriers to—and facilitators of—unregulated ethical research, and what tools they would have found helpful in that context. This research will significantly advance our understanding of how and where ethical issues arise in unregulated research during times of crisis, and how participants in open science communities negotiate these challenges. This project will result in recommendations for developing better tools and approaches to help ensure the ethical conduct of DIY research, and will assist regulators and policymakers with the development of more informed approaches to ethics in unregulated research.This proposal was funded through the ER2 program by the BIO and OISE directorates.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.