PowerPoint Presentation INF 200 Research Methods for Informatics Twelfth week> Asynchronous Agenda Welcome to the twelfth week Course Evaluation available Activities for this week Future activities Extra point activities 2 Welcome! Dear students. The end of the semester is right around the corner. Two more weeks and the classes for this semester are over! This week will make some reflections in regards to ethical considerations in research. The objective is that you will have on your radar the aspects to consider for protecting the participants in the research process while you or others are conducting academic research. Several of these aspect could apply for your professional path. Besides you will get the needed information to complete your semester project. I hope your are doing well in other courses and you are able to cope with all the complexity that the Covid-19 has brought to our lives, in so many aspects. Good luck and keep focused! 3 Course evaluation available As you know, the course evaluations have launched. Course evaluations will remain open until 11/29/2020 11:59 PM. Please take some time to evaluate the course in the following days. [They do not accept late submissions]. This week’s activities This week we do not have: >Discussion >Quiz The activities that you need to work on are: Reading reflections 10: Reflections on the readings and using the concepts learned for identifying the delimitation, limitations, and ethical considerations of their own research (Due on Wednesday 11/11) Activity for the semester project. The research design report is due on Friday 11/13. 5 This week’s readings I have put together TWO presentations that will guide you throughout this week’s readings and materials. You can find this presentation in this weeks folder. 6 Reading reflections You are required to submit on Blackboard a paper with the delimitation and the limitations of your research project and the obstacles you can find for your data collection (~2 pages) 3.4 Limits of the research 3.5 Limitations of the research 3.6 Feasibility and obstacles Consider part of the section 3.6 Feasibility and obstacles, the ethical aspects to consider in your research [read more in the following slide] In addition, you need to copy-paste an IMAGE of the timetable with your estimation of the time that each stage will take. You can find an excel file with the table on Blackboard in the reading reflections You must fill with blue color the month(s) in which the specific activity has to be executed. 7 Reading reflections You need to follow carefully and as much as possible the pieces of advice provided in the videos. Not all the pieces of advice might apply. More information about what to include in the ethical aspects of your research You must list the personal data that you would be managing from your participants (I don’t mean only the obvious ones. You need to reflect on this and identify even the not so obvious ones such as the IP Address). You need to explain what strategies you would use to protect the data that you collect for your research. You need to explain what strategies you would use to protect the data that you collect for your research. 8 3 extra-points activity! You can get 3 extra-points for the semester grade if you get the CITI certificate. If you are interested in getting the CITI certificate, you need to register following the link below and complete the basic course. You do not need to pay because UAlbany is affiliated with the CITI Program. https://www.citiprogram.org/index.cfm?pageID=154&icat=0&clear=1 3 extra-points activity! How long does it take to complete the Basic course to get the certificate? Let say 4 to 5 hours. You just need to complete the basic course You need to evaluate if this opportunity is a convenient option for you. The information provided in the mini-course is quite interesting. One of the benefits is that 4 points can be the difference between an A- and an A and so on. 3 extra-points activity! The activity is optional. You just need to include the CITI certificate as part of the appendix of your final version of the research design. More details about the CITI certificate: > The course's name is IRB: Human Subject Research (see below). This is the link to the webpage that confirms the information you are providing https://about.citiprogram.org/en/series/human-subjects-research-hsr/ 3 extra-points activity! Human Subjects Research (HSR) basic content is organized into two courses: Biomedical (Biomed) and Social-Behavioral-Educational (SBE). They are intended for anyone involved in research studies with human subjects, or who have responsibilities for setting policies and procedures with respect to such research, including Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). This is the information about the course that is in the CITI certification. Curriculum Group: Human Research Course Learner Group: IRB: Human Subject Research (Investigators, Advisors) Stage: Stage 1 - Basic Course Extra-point activity [reminder] Instructions. Attend this talk and send an email to me with the highlights of the research that will be presented. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/predicting-versus-changing-behavioral-and-clinical-outcomes-using-big-data-tickets-125351576941 Future activities Keep in mind that the activities for this and the following week are (from the syllabus): 14 CEHC 210 CRITICAL INQUIRY AND COMMUNICATION Ethical considerations in research INF 200 Research Methods for Informatics Ethics Ethics is one of the main branches of philosophy. It studies human behavior and judgments in terms of good or bad. The ‘golden rule’ is ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. That appears be an immediate mechanism for defining what is ethical or unethical but it is not that simple. The judgment of what is good or bad behavior varies in time and space. Even, at the same time and space, for some people an ‘X’ behavior could be acceptable and embraced while for other people the same ‘X’ behavior could be reprehensible. Each society defines (formally or informally) some ethical rules that are a frame for action for their members, defining what is the expected behavior in order to not harm the same society or their members. 2 Ethical considerations in research We can see from different examples in history or present times, how people have a different judgment of what is ethical or unethical. If several researchers have different criteria to judge an activity as ethical or not, or if they consider that the benefit that the experiment can bring exceeds the harm that it can create. Then, how can ethical research can be assured in institutions? There are several measures put in place. 3 Ethical considerations in research One of the measures that has been created to ‘unify’ the criteria of what ethics is, are some guidelines and ethic codes depending on the academic discipline. In addition some institutional offices usually named the Institutional Review Board (IRB), make a deep analysis of the research project to ensure that researchers affiliated with the institution do not conduct potentially harmful research. 4 Ethical considerations in research Another measure implemented is that the researchers have to provide in the consent form, the address and phone number of: the IRB office that is a third party in the research the main investigator that is responsible for the supervision of the research. If for any reason a participant gets in any trouble for the research or has concerns about it, they have the right to discuss at any moment any doubts or concerns about the research with the researcher, the IRB office, or the main investigator. 5 Informed consent to participate A key element that leads to ethical behavior while conducting research is to be transparent with the participant of the goal, process, and their rights. Information is an important protection against unethical behavior. Informed consent. The participants, in almost all the cases, have to sign a consent form where their rights are explained as well as the dynamics and goals of the research. Participants have to be informed of their rights regarding the experiment, data collection, data analysis and scientific dissemination. Participants can even withdraw from the experiments or research without giving any explanations as to doing so. The researcher commits to the participant to keep confidential the participant’s and personal information. 6 What is Personal Data? Right! If we are collecting personal data we need to protect it but What is personal data? There is some data that obviously falls into this category like name, address, telephone number…. but as you can imagine, there is some personal data that is not so obvious but still it is part of our identity. Personal identifiable information (personal data in the U. S.) is a crucial concept that is not consistently defined in the regulation, and this produces uncertainness. At first glance, the concept seems easy. Personal identifiable information “…implies any information referring to an individual or allowing in some manner a connection with or identification of a particular person” (Velasquez, 2013: 5232). 7 What is Personal Data? We can find a very detailed concept of personal information in the §312.2 [Definitions] of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule: Personal information means individually identifiable information about an individual collected online, including: (1) A first and last name; (2) A home or other physical address including street name and name of a city or town; (3) Online contact information as defined in this section; (4) A screen or user name where it functions in the same manner as online contact information, as defined in this section; (5) A telephone number; 8 What is Personal Data? Continue: (6) A Social Security number; (7) A persistent identifier that can be used to recognize a user over time and across different Web sites or online services. Such persistent identifier includes, but is not limited to, a customer number held in a cookie, an Internet Protocol (IP) address, a processor or device serial number, or unique device identifier; (8) A photograph, video, or audio file where such file contains a child's image or voice; (9) Geolocation information sufficient to identify street name and name of a city or town; or (10) Information concerning the child or the parents of that child that the operator collects online from the child and combines with an identifier described in this definition. 9 What is Personal Data? Yes, you can say …but that list is intended to protect a very specific and vulnerable group of the population, children under 13 years-old and your research is not including that population!! I agree on this observation. The risk comes with the fact that various court decisions have used this definition as a model to determine expectations of privacy in other contexts (Velasquez, 2013: 5233). SOURCE CITED: Velasquez, J. D. (2013). Web mining and privacy concerns: Some important legal issues to be consider before applying any data and