Snapshots of Research Ethics around the world and around the web

Research ethics is an interesting field because although most countries seem to support similar sounding values in our research ethics systems these systems are often radically different from each other. Likewise different disciplines approach ethics differently. In this post, I'm going to present four snapshots of research ethics from 3 different countries and 4 different disciplines.

First up is this excellent post: An inside-outsider’s view of Human Research Ethics Review From Greg Downey, a member of the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. In it he discusses the ethics review of ethnography, both as a researcher and as a member of the University's research ethics committee. He responds to an article: Katz, Jack. 2006. Ethical Escape Routes for Underground Ethnographers. American Ethnologist 33(4):499-506.

Secondly there is this post: e-Research Ethics: A Note from Mallory Wober by William H. Dutton, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute , Professor of Internet Studies, University of Oxford. It is a fascinating post of a discussion of some of the ethical issues involved in online research.

Thirdly there is this post: IRBs vs. Departmental Review by Zachary M. Schrag, Assistant Professor of History, George Mason University, USA. Which contains a discussion between myself and Zach about the best form of oversight for oral history projects.

Finally there is my own post here: Research Ethics in the UK: The present "system" which summarises the current state of play in regards to ethics review in the UK.

If you are interested in cross cultural comparisons of the ethics review that is carried out in universities, this is probably not a bad starting point.