Dear Colleagues,
New computational, digital and web-based tools and techniques are increasingly being developed for use in social science research of all kinds allowing for new methodologies of social science research. There are undoubtedly methodological and epistemological challenges to be met. There are also very important ethical challenges to be met. Some of these challenges have already received attention, such as those relating to privacy, confidentiality, ownership and the fair and appropriate re-use of data. Other aspects have received less attention, such as the relation between epistemology and ethics, questions relating to the broader social effects of computational and digital techniques in the social sciences, and the ethical, social or political responsibilities of social science researchers in the new socio-technological configurations of e-research.
As these tools and technologies are still in relatively early stages of development and take-up among social science researchers, there is still time for the community at large to be heard regarding what these broader and possibly deeper ethical issues are, and how to address them. It is of utmost importance to hear the voices of the social science communities whose practices will increasingly be influenced by computational and digital technologies, raising issues and concerns about the development and deployment of these tools, and setting out the guidelines and principles that they believe ought to be respected.
To this end, we are initiating a broad-based debate among social scientists regarding e-research ethics with the aim of informing the way in which the tools and technologies are designed and developed, the way they are implemented and embedded, and the broad intellectual environment in which they are deployed.
As a way of organising the debate, we are structuring it as a series of inputs into a possible manifesto. In other words, we are asking participants the following question: If there were a manifesto on ethics of e-research, what would you like to see in it? In the first round of debate, we will approach recognised figures in the social sciences to kick-off the debate with short position pieces to initiate this process.
If you would like to join in on this project and help catalyze the views of social scientists in the development of e-research, please contact us by email with a small note about your interest.
| Annamaria Carusi Senior Research Associate Oxford e-Research Centre |
Anne Beaulieu Senior Research Fellow Virtual Knowledge Studio |
