RESEARCH ETHICS AND LEGAL ISSUES

Professor Charles Oppenheim – 25 October 2011

WHAT ARE ETHICS?

Moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of

an activity

The “activity” to be focussed on is undertaking a research project

This handout focuses on some ethical and legal issues associated with

LIS research

Much may seem like a teaching a grandmother how to suck eggs; but

I’m surprised by the number of student projects/articles I’ve been asked

to referee that break some of the guidelines

ISSUES TO CONSIDER

Confidentiality

Questionnaires and interviews

Plagiarism and other forms of cheating

Getting published

Data Protection

FoI

Of course, there are lots of other legal and ethical issues that might

arise…….

CONFIDENTIALITY/ANONYMITY

Remind participants that their answers will be kept confidential and will

not be attributed to any individual or organisation (except in those

cases where they explicitly agree to be named)

Confidentiality doesn’t just apply to individuals but also to organisations

Unless an organisation has agreed to be named, you should respect its

confidentiality – and don’t make it easy for the reader to identify it (e.g.,

“a well known high street retailer whose trade mark is St. Michael”)

You may have to sign a confidentiality or a non-disclosure agreement

(NDA).

Incidentally, it is courteous to send a copy of the final research report to

anyone who participated and who has expressed an interest in it

QUESTIONNAIRES AND INTERVIEWS

Best not to send out a questionnaire or conduct an interview without

checking contents/interview schedule with someone else first!

Pilot studies are strongly recommended

Need to think carefully, and understand, about the pros and cons of

various sampling techniques and analysing the results to draw conclu-

sions

IT’S IMPORTANT!

Muck it up, and you’ve wasted your and other people’s time; badly de-

signed questions, an arrogant style or poor grammar/spelling will annoy

people and may well lead to a low response rate

Make sure any covering note is polite and appropriate

QUESTIONNAIRES & INTERVIEWS

Stress to participants they can withdraw or refuse to answer specific

questions at any time.

If you want to tape record, ask for permission first.

Don’t DEMAND that they see you or that they reply to your question-

naire.

In my view – not shared by everyone – it is not appropriate to give them

a deadline to reply by

Need to think carefully before sending out reminders

ASSESSING KNOWLEDGE

Testing people (“what is the lifetime of copyright for an unpublished

manuscript?”) can insult them

Asking people to rate their knowledge (“very knowledgeable, knowl-

edgeable, know a little, I know nothing”) might tempt them to lie.

Overall, difficult to get a totally reliable way of assessing knowledge

Nonetheless, the questionnaire issued by DREaM tries to do that in as-

sessing your knowledge of research techniques!

APPOINTMENTS

Set clear time and date, and venue

Never be late or fail to keep appointment without warning them

Switch off your mobile when you enter the organisation’s premises

Dress code is normally formal

Any discourtesy reflects badly on you, and on your employer

VULNERABLE GROUPS

Your work might involve vulnerable individuals, or school children.

CRB checks likely if you deal with school kids, or if the research takes

place in a school, whether or not children are being studied. This can

delay start of research, so time elapsed needs to be factored in.

Special care is needed when dealing with vulnerable people, including

elderly, ill, criminals, drug users, etc.

PLAGIARISM

Deliberate or accidental presentation of another’s words/images/ideas

as one’s own

Implication of an intent (perhaps subconscious) to deceive

It might involve infringement of copyright and of Moral Rights

Moral Rights include the Paternity Right (the right to be identified as the

author of a piece)

Infringement of copyright occurs if you copy a substantial part of some-

one else’s copyright work without permission

Infringement of copyright, or of Moral Rights can lead to you being

sued for damages

So you can get sued for copying the text and sued separately for failing

to provide the original author’s name

HOW TO AVOID PLAGIARISM

Use quotation marks when quoting directly, together with an appropri-

ate reference

Paraphrase the text you are using without quotation marks, but still cite

the reference

OTHER TYPES OF CHEATING

Fabricating results

Adjusting results to suit your pre-set opinion on how the results should

pan out, e.g., ignoring or amending results that don’t fit in

A “comprehensive” literature review that ignores contrary evidence

GETTING PUBLISHED

Give credit where credit is due by means of co-authorship and/or ac-

knowledgements at end; don’t ignore anyone who gave material assis-

tance

If co-authoring, let the co-authors see the draft article/report so they

can comment on it

Respond promptly and courteously to referees’ comments – even if you

think they are rubbish. Be prepared to stand up for your corner if you

don’t agree with what a referee says.

Moral Rights – a person has the right to object if their name doesn’t ap-

pear on something they helped write, and to object if something is writ-

ten in their name which they did NOT write; they can also object to

derogatory treatment of something they wrote

DATA PROTECTION

No legal right as such to privacy, though Human Rights Act is nowa-

days a powerful weapon – see, e.g., phone hacking cases; in general,

though, people CAN take CCTV pictures of you, photograph you on the

beach, etc., without having to ask your permission

Data protection potentially comes into play once they start “process-

ing”, e.g., storing, publishing, disseminating, amending, the material re-

lating to an individual in any way

DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998

The Act ensures that people who handle personal information do so in

a professional and appropriate manner, and that they keep individuals

informed on what they are doing

Based on the eight Data Protection Principles, which everyone han-

dling personal data must abide by

DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES

First – inform each individual that you are collecting information about

the person, unless this involves “disproportionate effort”; in typical re-

search projects, this exemption is unlikely to apply, so in general, in-

form people that you are collecting data about them for your research

There is an issue with unobtrusive observational studies. People’s be-

haviour will be more natural and honest if they don’t know they are be-

ing observed or recorded. You need to balance that against the require-

ment that individuals should be informed data is being collected about

them. Best way round is to make all unobtrusive data collection anony-

mous. Data Protection Act does not apply if no-one can be identified.

Second – you must identify the purposes for which you are collecting

the data and let the individuals know this

Third - data collected must be relevant, not excessive or too little infor-

mation.

Fourth – data must be accurate and where necessary kept up to date

Fifth – hold the data only for as long as it is needed; thus, unless an

article is planned based on your work, either destroy the personal data

at the end of your research or put anonymised raw data into a data

repository, and/or as an appendix to any report/publication.

Sixth - must respect individuals’ rights to inspect data collected about

them and/or to object to what is being held about them

Seventh – adequate technical and organisational measures must be in

place to ensure data is not disclosed to unauthorised people, cannot be

hacked into, and is not amended, destroyed or copied by third parties;

need a judgement on the risks involved and sensitivity of the informa-

tion; thus, for example, surveys of library usage by drug abusers re-

quire more control than general surveys of opinions

Eighth – data must not be transferred outside the EEA if the country it

is transferred to has inadequate data protection laws – this includes the

USA. So do not share data about individuals with overseas colleagues

unless you are sure they will protect it properly and/or are subject to

sufficiently strong Data Protection laws in their own country.

If you fail to abide by any of these, you are breaking the law!

Penalties vary from civil offences (sued for damage) to criminal (fines

and/or prison

DATA

Covers computerised, manual data, CCTV footage, tape recordings…..

But must be personal, i.e., is about an identified or identifiable liv-

ing individual

Anonymised data is NOT covered by the Act; data about organisations

is also NOT covered (unless organisation is a one man band)

Individual can be anywhere in the world; as long as data controller is

based in UK, DPA applies

SENSITIVE PERSONAL DATA

Racial or ethnic origin; political opinions; religious or similar beliefs;

trade union membership; physical or mental health; sex life; commis-

sion or alleged commission of criminal offences and related proceed-

ings

Can only be processed if deliberately put into public domain by the indi-

vidual, or if you have got explicit written consent to process it

You should not handle such personal data under any other circum-

stances

Could apply, e.g., when looking at provision of LIS services to trade

union members, for ethnic minority groups, or for those in prisons or

patients in hospitals

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Applies only to public sector organisations, such as Universities

Public has a right to demand to see information (not necessarily syn-

onymous with copies of documents) held by that public authority

Rather limited exemptions

Most research data will be subject to FoI unless it is commercial in con-

fidence (criteria are quite strict for that) or contain personal data

ICO’S ADVICE ON FoI AND RESEARCH DATA

The public interest test – The guidance highlights the importance of the

public interest test and factors in favour of disclosure that should be

considered by higher education institutions.

Commercial information - Many universities and research institutes

work in partnership with third parties and will hold commercially sensi-

tive information. The guidance makes clear that disclosures under FOI

should not undermine their ability to do this. If there is a genuine need

to protect information from disclosure, an FoI request can be refused.

Free and frank discussion – The guidance acknowledges the impor-

tance of academics and researchers being able to exchange views in-

ternally and to formulate and debate opinions relating to research away

from external scrutiny. Protection for this type of information is provided

by section 36 of the Act (prejudice to the conduct of public affairs).

Vexatious requests - While most requesters use the legislation respon-

sibly, there is occasionally some misuse of the rights provided by the

law - or circumstances where requests become overly burdensome;

disrupt a public authority’s ability to perform their core functions, or ap-

pear to be part of an intention to disrupt or attack the public authority’s

performance. The guidance highlights the provisions under FoI that

give exceptions to the duty to answer such requests.

Proactive disclosure - One should willingly accept making research

data available wherever possible

E-mails which contain personal data, e.g., remarks about data subjects

or researchers, are subject to the DPA.

SEE http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/latest_news/2011/ico-issues-advice-

on-the-disclosure-of-research-information-26092011.aspx

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE….

For research ethics, do a search on Amazon for the topic – hundreds of

books available

For data protection, I recommend Peter Carey’s Data Protection: A

Practical Guide to UK and EU Law (OUP), and Rosemary Jay’s

Data Protection Law and Practice (Sweet & Maxwell) - both author-

itative and (fairly) readable

For FoI, try Peter Carey and Marcus Turle’s Freedom of Information

Handbook (The Law Society)

Professor Charles Oppenheim

c.oppenheim@btinternet.com

DREaM Event 2, Edinburgh

October 2011