Ethical Issues

If you are doing research within an institution there will be regulations and guidelines to follow to ensure that your work meets required ethical standards. The standards are usually set by a local body (e.g. an ethics committee or Institutional Review Board) to meet generally accepted guidelines. Conforming to their guidelines is usually an institutional requirement, but it is also good practice. Even if you are doing research without an institutional affiliation it’s a good idea to meet these standards. For instance, CITI certification is a USA standard for conducting human subject research: (https://about.citiprogram.org/en/homepage/).

Since it can take several months to get formal ethical approval for a project, it’s essential to start the process as soon as possible so this does not impact on your data collection schedule. Auditing the ethical aspects of a project can also be a useful way of refining your research and anticipating issues that could arise downstream.

• See Farrow (2016) for an overview of research ethics in open education
• Consider taking the research ethics training offered by your local institution, or by the National Institutes of Health (USA) https://ethics.od.nih.gov/training.htm

You can also approach members of the GO-GN team and wider network for adviceon dealing with ethical issues or other matters that arise.