As a general rule of thumb, we know that all professions are governed by a certain code of conduct or ethics that has evolved over the years to accommodate the values, needs and expectations of those who hold a stake in the professions. The same principles applies to a research process.
A researcher should emphasise ethics in undertaking a research process. Most ethical issues concerning research fall into four categories:
(a) Informed Consent
Respondents in research study should be told and informed about the nature of the study and given the choice of participating or not participating.
A respondent also has the right to withdraw from the research study anytime they desired. This means that participation should be strictly voluntary. In IT surveys, it is common practice to present an informed consent form that describes the nature of the research work as well as the nature of respondents participation in it.
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(b) Protection of Harm
Researchers should not expose their respondents to physical or psychological harm. This applies in all situation especially during data collection period from respondents or during subjectsÊ involvement in experiment. In such cases, a researcher should carefully examine whether respondentsÊ involvement is likely to cause harm. Therefore, it is important to educate the respondents earlier before conducting any study or experiments.
(c) Confidentiality
Sharing information about respondents in your research work for purposes other than research is unethical. In ICT, privacy and confidentiality have always been a great concern. There are cases where respondentsÊ information used for spamming or refferal listing for consumer products. It is unethical to release your respondents information to third parties.
Therefore, you need to ensure that after information has been collected, its source cannot be known. Maintain anonymity and confidentiality in treating your respondents.
(d) Seeking sensitive information
Certain types of information can be regarded as sensitive and might not be convenient for a respondent in a research study. However, if your research work needs such crucial information especially in providing new contribution to a body of knowledge, the best thing to do will be to ask respondentsÊ permission to proceed on obtaining such information. Give them sufficient time to decide if they want to participate without any inducement.
We have discussed ethical issues involving research participants and the research process. However, there is also equally important consideration towards ethical issues relating to a researcher. Following are the ethical issues related:
(i) Plagiarism
The most important issue in academic and research integrity is plagiarism. Researchers who claim work done by someone else as their own work are very much unethical. This includes taking credit deliberately or not deliberately for works produced by another without giving proper acknowledgement.
Works includes photographs, charts, graphs, drawings, statistics, interviews and texts posted on the Web or journal articles. To avoid plagiarism, paraphrase clauses, sentences or paragraphs in your own words and cite your source.
(ii) Bias
Bias on researchersÊ part is unethical. Bias is deliberate attempt either to hide what you have found in your studies or highlighting something which is not true. In academic and research platform, a research should report and cite the true findings honestly and without any bias.
Visit the following website to read an article entitled „What is Ethics in Research & Why is It Important?‰ written by David B. Resnik, J.D., Ph.D.
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis.cfm Last Accessed: 3/1/2008
Answer the following questions once you are done with the article.
(a) Why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research?
(b) Research on professional associations, government agencies or universities that have adopted specific codes, rules and policies relating to research ethics in Malaysia.
Post your answers in the myLMS online discussions. What have you learned from this activity?
ACTIVITY 2.3
SELF-CHECK 2.2 1. What is plagiarism?
2. What are the ethical issues related to a research project?
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Research orientation in IT includes three environments: User environment, IT/Information System development and IT/Information System operation environment.Instrumentalist research is an alternative motivation to contribute to understanding in order to be able to more effectively act or to design interventions into the environment.
Applied research commences with a technology (an artefact, a technique or combination of both) and uses it in an experimental fashion to intervene into personal, organisational or social processes.
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Problem-oriented research begins with a problem and experiments with existing technologies and/ or prototypes new ones, in an effort to devise a solution.
There are 5 common research techniques in IT; non-empiricial techniques, scientific research techniques, interpretivist techniques, research techniques at the scientific/interpretivist boundary and engineering research techniques.
A researcher should emphasise ethical issues in undertaking a research process.
Plagiarism and bias are two ethcial issues that are directly related to a researcher when undertaking a research project.
Plagiarism and bias should be avoided by all means as these could jeopardise the research outcomesÊ integrity.
Applied research
Instrumentalist research Non-empirical techniques
Plagiarism Problem-oriented research
Research ethics
Scientific research techniques
1. Choose an IT research article and identify the research techniques used in the work. [Go to OUMÊs Digital Library and click on
„ACM‰ which has a good collection of journals in ICT]
2. Discuss how you can avoid plagiarism during a research process.
3. List some of specific ethical issues in the field of IT research that you feel relevant.
Books
Leedy, P. D. & Ormrod, J. E. (2001). Practical research: planning and design. Merrill Prentice Hall.
Remenyi, D., Williams, B., Money, A., Swartz, E. (1998). Doing research in business and management. London: Sage Publications.
Journals/Proceedings
Cook, T. D. & Campbell, D. T. (1979). Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis for Field Settings., Chicago, Illinois: Rand McNally.
Glass, R. L., Ramesh, V. & Vessey, I. (2004). An analysis of research in computing disciplines. Communications of the ACM. Volume 47, Number 6 (2004), Pp.89-94 .
Heiskanen, A. (1997). The reflective information systems practitioner approach as a research and learning expedient. Finland: University of Oulu.
Moody, D. L. (200). Building links between IS research and professional practice:
improving the relevance and impact of IS research. Proceedings of the twenty first international conference on Information systems, p.351-360, December 2000, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Internet Resources
http://psychology.about.com/od/researchmethods/ss/expdesintro_2.htm http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/ResMeth.html
Kendra Wan Vagner (2007). Introduction to Research Methods [Electronic version]
Roger Clarke (2000). Appropriate Research Methods for Electronic Commerce [Electronic version]
INTRODUCTION
A literature review uses as its database reports of primary or original scholarship, and does not report new primary scholarship itself. The primary reports used in the literature may be verbal, but in the vast majority of cases reports are written documents. The types of scholarship may be empirical, theoretical, critical/analytic or methodological in nature.
Second, a literature review seeks to describe, summarise, evaluate, clarify and/or integrate the content of primary reports.
Cooper, H. M. (1989) Integrating research: a guide for literature reviews, 2nd Ed, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, Calif.