Harvard Researchers Used Secret Cameras to Study Attendance. Was That Unethical?

By Rebecca Koenig and Steve Kolowich
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published November 6, 2014

A high-tech effort to study classroom attendance at Harvard University that used secret photo surveillance is raising questions about research ethics among the institution’s faculty members. The controversy heated up on Tuesday night, when a computer-science professor, Harry R. Lewis, questioned the study at a faculty meeting.

During the study, which took place in the spring of 2013, cameras in 10 Harvard classrooms recorded one image per minute, and the photographs were scanned to determine which seats were filled.

To some professors, it was an obvious intrusion into their privacy—and their students’.

The entire article is here.

Human-subjects research: The ethics squad

By Elie Golgin
Nature
Originally published October 21, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Ethical dilemmas in research are nothing new; what is new is that scientists can go to formal ethics consultancies such as Silber's to get advice. Unlike the standard way that scientists receive ethical guidance, through institutional review boards (IRBs), these services offer non-binding counsel. And because they do not form part of the regulatory process, they can weigh in on a wider range of issues — from mundane matters of informed consent and study protocol to controversial topics such as the use of experimental Ebola treatments — and offer more creative solutions.

The consulting services are “a really new area”, says Joshua Crites, a research ethicist at the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine in Hershey. “Even some of the most basic questions get complicated really quickly, and it's better to have a group of ethicists working together to sort this out.”

The entire article is here.

Do research ethics need updating for the digital age?

By Michael W. Ross, PhD, MD, MPH
The Monitor on Psychology
October 2014, Vol 45, No. 9
Print version: page 64

Over a week in early January 2012, the news feeds of more than 600,000 Facebook users changed subtly: Without users' knowledge, researchers manipulated the feeds' emotional content to examine how Facebook friends' emotions affected one another.

The study on "massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks" (PNAS, June 17, 2014) generated significant debate in both public and scientific spheres. Much of this debate centered on ethical aspects of the study. In an editorial, even the journal's editor-in-chief voiced concern that the "collection of the data by Facebook may have involved practices that were not fully consistent with the principles of obtaining fully informed consent and allowing participants to opt out" (Verma, 2014).

There has been extensive and incisive debate about the ethical and scientific issues arising from the study.

The entire article is here.