Research Agenda Workshop on Internet Research Ethics, December 14-16, 2001, Lancaster University, England

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award helps to support the participation of researchers in a workshop on internet research ethics. Four US-based scholars will meet with three U.K./European scholars and researchers to outline a research agenda directed towards establishing an ethics of Internet research. Similarities and ethically pertinent differences between traditional human subjects research and on-line research with human subjects will be considered. Such differences emerge because the Internet allows for varieties of research never before possible, raising new ethical questions. Needed are guidelines for Internet research that are genuinely global in their validity (as required for a global medium) while acknowledging important cultural and national differences that might require specific ethical codes. Workshop participants were chosen on the basis of their expertise both as internet researchers and ethicists who have worked extensively on the problems of Internet research ethics. The workshop will be held in conjunction and interaction with CEPE participants--moral philosophers who have long focussed on computer ethics hence providing an audience uniquely suited to engaging productively with the issues raised by the workshop. The workshop builds on recent efforts to develop such principles of research ethics, including several national statements developed in the United States and abroad. It also builds on the forthcoming report of the Ethics Working Committee (EWC) of the Association of Internet Researchers, which attempts a first synthesis of available analysis and guidelines and tentative proposals for local and global Internet research ethics. Expected outcomes of this workshop include a series of articles in a special issue of Ethics and Information Technology, workshop results posted on www.cddc.vt.edu/aoir/ethics/, and stimulation of much many practical outcomes such as national and international guidelines or principles governing human research on-line.