Ethical dilemmas in research
Dilemmas in scientific research and professional l dilemmas in scientific research and professional ethics center for a tech center for ethics and use school of medicine ethics and a ctsa & winship cancer institute offers collaborative research ethics consultation e to the georgia ctsa webpage on ethical dilemmas in scientific research and professional integrity. For a sample case followed by an expert opinion, click especially hope that these cases can provide useful teaching materials for college or university faculty who present lectures or courses on responsible conduct in research. Podcasts in a ctsa-berd statistical clinic for bio-related research at georgia tics research group directed by isye/bme professor brani vidakovic, offers free consulting for data-analysis questions in the domain of bio-related wednesday from 10:00-11:15 a. Club: expanding research endeavors through industry collaborations-november k-club provides an educational forum to assist fellows and faculty. 2004 jan;14(1):l dilemmas in research on internet r s1, haans d, skinner information1teennet project, department of public health sciences, university of toronto, ontario, ctthere has been a rapid growth in the number of articles using internet data sources to illuminate health behavior. However, little has been written about the ethical considerations of online research, especially studies involving data from internet discussion boards. In this article, the authors examine how a youth-focused research program negotiated ethical practices in the creation of its comprehensive health site and online message board. They address three situations in which ethical predicaments arose: (a) enrolling research participants, (b) protecting participants from risk or harm, and (c) linking public and private data. Drawing on the ethical principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, justice, and beneficence, the authors present practical guidelines for resolving ethical dilemmas in research on internet : 14725180 doi: 10. Gov'tmesh termsbeneficenceethics, research*guidelines as topichumansinformed consentinternet*personal autonomyprivacylinkout - more resourcesfull text sourcesatyponpubmed commons home. Commentshow to join pubmed commonshow to cite this comment:Ncbi > literature > the browser controls to adjust the font size, or print this is ethics in research & why is it important? This is the most common way of defining "ethics": norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable people learn ethical norms at home, at school, in church, or in other social settings. Ethical norms are so ubiquitous that one might be tempted to regard them as simple commonsense. On the other hand, if morality were nothing more than commonsense, then why are there so many ethical disputes and issues in our society? Plausible explanation of these disagreements is that all people recognize some common ethical norms but interpret, apply, and balance them in different ways in light of their own values and life experiences. For example, two people could agree that murder is wrong but disagree about the morality of abortion because they have different understandings of what it means to be a human societies also have legal rules that govern behavior, but ethical norms tend to be broader and more informal than laws. Although most societies use laws to enforce widely accepted moral standards and ethical and legal rules use similar concepts, ethics and law are not the same. We can also use ethical concepts and principles to criticize, evaluate, propose, or interpret laws. Peaceful civil disobedience is an ethical way of protesting laws or expressing political r way of defining 'ethics' focuses on the disciplines that study standards of conduct, such as philosophy, theology, law, psychology, or sociology. For instance, in considering a complex issue like global warming, one may take an economic, ecological, political, or ethical perspective on the problem. While an economist might examine the cost and benefits of various policies related to global warming, an environmental ethicist could examine the ethical values and principles at different disciplines, institutions, and professions have standards for behavior that suit their particular aims and goals. Ethical norms also serve the aims or goals of research and apply to people who conduct scientific research or other scholarly or creative activities. See glossary of commonly used terms in research are several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research.
First, norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth, and avoidance of error. For example, prohibitions against fabricating, falsifying, or misrepresenting research data promote the truth and minimize , since research often involves a great deal of cooperation and coordination among many different people in different disciplines and institutions, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness. For example, many ethical norms in research, such as guidelines for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to protect intellectual property interests while encouraging collaboration. Most researchers want to receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen or disclosed , many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held accountable to the public. For instance, federal policies on research misconduct, conflicts of interest, the human subjects protections, and animal care and use are necessary in order to make sure that researchers who are funded by public money can be held accountable to the , ethical norms in research also help to build public support for research. People are more likely to fund a research project if they can trust the quality and integrity of y, many of the norms of research promote a variety of other important moral and social values, such as social responsibility, human rights, animal welfare, compliance with the law, and public health and safety. Ethical lapses in research can significantly harm human and animal subjects, students, and the public. For example, a researcher who fabricates data in a clinical trial may harm or even kill patients, and a researcher who fails to abide by regulations and guidelines relating to radiation or biological safety may jeopardize his health and safety or the health and safety of staff and and policies for research the importance of ethics for the conduct of research, it should come as no surprise that many different professional associations, government agencies, and universities have adopted specific codes, rules, and policies relating to research ethics. Many government agencies, such as the national institutes of health (nih), the national science foundation (nsf), the food and drug administration (fda), the environmental protection agency (epa), and the us department of agriculture (usda) have ethics rules for funded researchers. Other influential research ethics policies include singapore statement on research integrity, the american chemical society, the chemist professional’s code of conduct, code of ethics (american society for clinical laboratory science) american psychological association, ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct, statements on ethics and professional responsibility (american anthropological association), statement on professional ethics (american association of university professors), the nuremberg code and the world medical association's declaration of following is a rough and general summary of some ethical principals that various codes address*:Strive for honesty in all scientific communications. Do not deceive colleagues, research sponsors, or the to avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer review, personnel decisions, grant writing, expert testimony, and other aspects of research where objectivity is expected or required. Keep good records of research activities, such as data collection, research design, and correspondence with agencies or data, results, ideas, tools, resources. Never t confidential communications, such as papers or grants submitted for publication, personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient sible h in order to advance research and scholarship, not to advance just your own career. Promote their welfare and allow them to make their own t for t your colleagues and treat them to promote social good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research, public education, and discrimination against colleagues or students on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors not related to scientific competence and in and improve your own professional competence and expertise through lifelong education and learning; take steps to promote competence in science as a and obey relevant laws and institutional and governmental proper respect and care for animals when using them in research. Do not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal subjects conducting research on human subjects, minimize harms and risks and maximize benefits; respect human dignity, privacy, and autonomy; take special precautions with vulnerable populations; and strive to distribute the benefits and burdens of research fairly. It is therefore important for researchers to learn how to interpret, assess, and apply various research rules and how to make decisions and to act ethically in various situations. For example, consider the following case,The research protocol for a study of a drug on hypertension requires the administration of the drug at different doses to 50 laboratory mice, with chemical and behavioral tests to determine toxic effects. He therefore decides to extrapolate from the 45 completed results to produce the 5 additional different research ethics policies would hold that tom has acted unethically by fabricating data. If this study were sponsored by a federal agency, such as the nih, his actions would constitute a form of research misconduct, which the government defines as "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism" (or ffp). It is important to remember, however, that misconduct occurs only when researchers intend to deceive: honest errors related to sloppiness, poor record keeping, miscalculations, bias, self-deception, and even negligence do not constitute misconduct. The error does not affect the overall results of his research, but it is potentially misleading. Failing to publish a correction would be unethical because it would violate norms relating to honesty and objectivity in are many other activities that the government does not define as "misconduct" but which are still regarded by most researchers as unethical. These are sometimes referred to as "other deviations" from acceptable research practices and include:Publishing the same paper in two different journals without telling the ting the same paper to different journals without telling the informing a collaborator of your intent to file a patent in order to make sure that you are the sole ing a colleague as an author on a paper in return for a favor even though the colleague did not make a serious contribution to the sing with your colleagues confidential data from a paper that you are reviewing for a data, ideas, or methods you learn about while reviewing a grant or a papers without ng outliers from a data set without discussing your reasons in an inappropriate statistical technique in order to enhance the significance of your ing the peer review process and announcing your results through a press conference without giving peers adequate information to review your ting a review of the literature that fails to acknowledge the contributions of other people in the field or relevant prior hing the truth on a grant application in order to convince reviewers that your project will make a significant contribution to the hing the truth on a job application or curriculum the same research project to two graduate students in order to see who can do it the rking, neglecting, or exploiting graduate or post-doctoral g to keep good research g to maintain research data for a reasonable period of derogatory comments and personal attacks in your review of author's ing a student a better grade for sexual a racist epithet in the significant deviations from the research protocol approved by your institution's animal care and use committee or institutional review board for human subjects research without telling the committee or the reporting an adverse event in a human research g animals in ng students and staff to biological risks in violation of your institution's biosafety ging someone's ng supplies, books, or g an experiment so you know how it will turn unauthorized copies of data, papers, or computer over $10,000 in stock in a company that sponsors your research and not disclosing this financial rately overestimating the clinical significance of a new drug in order to obtain economic actions would be regarded as unethical by most scientists and some might even be illegal in some cases.
However, they do not fall into the narrow category of actions that the government classifies as research misconduct. Indeed, there has been considerable debate about the definition of "research misconduct" and many researchers and policy makers are not satisfied with the government's narrow definition that focuses on ffp. However, given the huge list of potential offenses that might fall into the category "other serious deviations," and the practical problems with defining and policing these other deviations, it is understandable why government officials have chosen to limit their y, situations frequently arise in research in which different people disagree about the proper course of action and there is no broad consensus about what should be done. In these situations, there may be good arguments on both sides of the issue and different ethical principles may conflict. She receives a request from another research team that wants access to her complete dataset. On the one hand, the ethical norm of openness obliges her to share data with the other research team. Another option would be to offer to collaborate with the following are some step that researchers, such as dr. Wexford, can take to deal with ethical dilemmas in research:What is the problem or issue? In this case, the issue is whether to share information with the other research is the relevant information? In this case, there may be other choices besides 'share' or 'don't share,' such as 'negotiate an agreement' or 'offer to collaborate with the researchers. Do ethical codes or policies as well as legal rules apply to these different options? Broader ethical rules, such as openness and respect for credit and intellectual property, may also apply to this case. Laws relating to intellectual property may be there any people who can offer ethical advice? May be useful to seek advice from a colleague, a senior researcher, your department chair, an ethics or compliance officer, or anyone else you can trust. Wexford might want to talk to her supervisor and research team before making a considering these questions, a person facing an ethical dilemma may decide to ask more questions, gather more information, explore different options, or consider other ethical rules. Ideally, a person who makes a decision in an ethical dilemma should be able to justify his or her decision to himself or herself, as well as colleagues, administrators, and other people who might be affected by the decision. Endorsing these methods in this context need not imply that ethical decisions are irrational, however. The main point is that human reasoning plays a pivotal role in ethical decision-making but there are limits to its ability to solve all ethical dilemmas in a finite amount of ing ethical conduct in academic institutions in the us require undergraduate, graduate, or postgraduate students to have some education in the responsible conduct of research (rcr). The nih and nsf have both mandated training in research ethics for students and trainees. Many academic institutions outside of the us have also developed educational curricula in research of you who are taking or have taken courses in research ethics may be wondering why you are required to have education in research ethics. You may believe that you are highly ethical and know the difference between right and wrong. Indeed, you also may believe that most of your colleagues are highly ethical and that there is no ethics problem in research.. Indeed, the evidence produced so far shows that misconduct is a very rare occurrence in research, although there is considerable variation among various estimates.
Of researchers per year (based on confirmed cases of misconduct in federally funded research) to as high as 1% of researchers per year (based on self-reports of misconduct on anonymous surveys). See shamoo and resnik (2015), cited y, it would be useful to have more data on this topic, but so far there is no evidence that science has become ethically corrupt, despite some highly publicized scandals. Even if misconduct is only a rare occurrence, it can still have a tremendous impact on science and society because it can compromise the integrity of research, erode the public’s trust in science, and waste time and resources. In any case, a course in research ethics will have little impact on "bad apples," one might ing to the "stressful" or "imperfect" environment theory, misconduct occurs because various institutional pressures, incentives, and constraints encourage people to commit misconduct, such as pressures to publish or obtain grants or contracts, career ambitions, the pursuit of profit or fame, poor supervision of students and trainees, and poor oversight of researchers (see shamoo and resnik 2015). In any case, a course in research ethics can be useful in helping to prevent deviations from norms even if it does not prevent misconduct. Education in research ethics is can help people get a better understanding of ethical standards, policies, and issues and improve ethical judgment and decision making. Many of the deviations that occur in research may occur because researchers simply do not know or have never thought seriously about some of the ethical norms of research. For example, some unethical authorship practices probably reflect traditions and practices that have not been questioned seriously until recently. Another example where there may be some ignorance or mistaken traditions is conflicts of interest in research. A researcher may think that a "normal" or "traditional" financial relationship, such as accepting stock or a consulting fee from a drug company that sponsors her research, raises no serious ethical issues. Or perhaps a university administrator sees no ethical problem in taking a large gift with strings attached from a pharmaceutical company. Maybe a physician thinks that it is perfectly appropriate to receive a $300 finder’s fee for referring patients into a clinical "deviations" from ethical conduct occur in research as a result of ignorance or a failure to reflect critically on problematic traditions, then a course in research ethics may help reduce the rate of serious deviations by improving the researcher's understanding of ethics and by sensitizing him or her to the y, education in research ethics should be able to help researchers grapple with the ethical dilemmas they are likely to encounter by introducing them to important concepts, tools, principles, and methods that can be useful in resolving these dilemmas. Scientists must deal with a number of different controversial topics, such as human embryonic stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, and research involving animal or human subjects, which require ethical reflection and b. You confident that you and your colleagues – and your phd students – can handle the typical ethical dilemmas that affect scholarly research and publishing; dilemmas such as the ones that michael a. Ethical issues vary widely and can affect a variety of decisions including, for example:Whether to include an author and how to decide the order of authors;. To avoid plagiarism and self-plagiarism concerns in one’s own work, and what to do if you find evidence that someone else appears to have done than deal with ethical violations after the fact, pre-training in ethical scenarios can help faculty and phd students become more aware of possible ethical complications, think through ethical dilemmas before they occur, and point out where to turn for extra jim davis and susan madsen were co-chairs of aom’s ethics education committee (eec) they developed several ethics scenarios, which they, other eec members and journal editors taught to multiple doctoral consortia at the aom annual meetings starting in 2008. Each scenario was a little example of one or more ethical dilemmas, and was designed to motivate discussions about ethical issues in the research process. The goal of the ethics training was to raise the consciousness of the participants, stimulate a dialogue, and serve as an introduction to aom’s ethics resources:Ethics adjudication, ethics education and ethics ombudsperson of research & publishing video series (developed by susan and jim). And procedures for handling ethical the annual aom meetings, two members of the aom ethics education committee (typically susan or jim and one other member), together with a journal editor from one of the top-tier scholarly management journals, visited each doctoral consortia. I follow with a short list of recommended internet-based resources that can be used as, or to provide background reading for, ethics in research pre-training should you decide to develop additional scenarios for use at your institution. The davis-madsen ethical davis, utah state university, @ madsen, utah valley university, madsensu@ ethics scenario topics were developed after a pre-conference symposium held at the national academy of management meetings in 2007. At that symposium a panel of journal editors described ethical violations in publications they had experienced. Audience members, consisting of doctoral students and faculty of all ranks and backgrounds, described the ethical problems they had experienced and the professional dilemmas that resulted.
We were surprised by the breadth and complexity of the ethical violations, and also by the confusion about what the participants could and should do. We left that symposium convinced that those stories should not end with that symposium, that they needed to be shared with the cases capture the ethical issues discussed in the 2007 aom symposium. Both the consortia faculty and students engaged in heated discussion about the ethical issues in the cases. Surprisingly, in some of the consortia the faculty and/or students claimed that there were no ethical violations in a particular case, despite the fact that the cases were grounded solidly upon the academy of management code of ethics! Provide further evidence that the ethical violations described in the cases were indeed violations, we made a series of videos, in our role as co-chairs of the aom ethics education committee; these ethics in research videos can be found on the academy website and also on youtube. The videos show academy officers, thought leaders and journal editors discussing the ethical issues found in the cases. We have found that the cases open up lively discussion and that the videos bring closure by making the ethical codes associated with the cases absolutely strongly encourage faculty to review the cases and the videos. Ignorance of ethical standards is a poor defense of ethical violations in the academy of management. You have recently begun to work with professor data and discovered that he has an interesting approach to research. You have found that professor data often manipulates the data and changes the dependent variable to ensure a statistically significant result and increase the probability of a major you seen this type of research before? Upon closer examination you realize that much of the research seems to be quite similar. She had recently insisted on being first author on all publications coming out of the dissertation research. 4: creative problem solving in scholarly research: desperately seeking are on the horns of a dilemma. You have been working on your research for some time and have nothing but disappointing results. A short list of internet resources on ethical davis-madsen scenarios are a wonderful way to initiate an ethics in research discussion in one’s department/university and with one’s students. Multiple short cases on research ethics, where each case is followed by an expert opinion on how to resolve the issue. The cases are intended to be used for teaching of research integrity, us department of health & human services: http:///. This federal government website provides not only federal policies and regulations, but also training resources on what is and how to handle research misconduct, case summaries involving research misconduct (these make for sobering reading) and free forensic tools (e. An extensive website of resources related to research ethics, including a short list of useful resources for teaching research ethics that covers websites, books and journals, among other items. The website also includes essays, slides and ppt handouts, syllabi, and a large number of case studies and role playing exercises on research ethics. For example, there are instructions by kenneth pimple on running small-group assignments in teaching research , judy e. Useful monograph about teaching research ethics by two professors at dartmouth who taught an ethics in research course. See http:///~ethics/archives/stern_ are, in addition, many useful journal articles on ethics in research that can be used for scenario training and discussion purposes, which have been made freely available for download by their journals and publishers.
For example:The “author resources” provided by the academy of management journals include several editorials that deal with ethics in research.