Originally posted to eBridge, 17 February 2013
Do we act according to rules or principles? Newby (2010) suggests
that there is normally a set of ‘rules’ that are accepted as best practice – but
do all researchers accept these, or can they even be held to them like laws? He
advises that when researchers make a decision to act differently, they should
ensure that they stick to a set of principles that they can defend from a moral
standpoint. One thorny question that enters my mind here is the assumption that
children’s education will/should be imposed from a top-down perspective by
governments and local authorities. Also the teachers themselves are generally
forgotten here – no mention is given to their standing as practitioners, or
their own right to learn and adapt without excessive intervention.
Honesty –
should really go without saying, but when working in a research department I
often heard, through hearsay, about professors leaving choice facts out of their
research papers to prevent others from successfully replicating their
experiments, particularly if they were working competitively with other research
groups towards prestigious results. When people are working towards goals
concerning commercial competition, it is to be expected that dishonesty would
certainly creep into the equation, both externally and internally.
Confidentiality – as for the previous point, it is
unlikely that one will always have a clear cut decision to make about this. Relationships and reputations can be destroyed through breach of confidence, but
also sometimes through blind adherence to a confidentiality rule over
principles.
Publishing
– some of the points that Newby raises about publishing data gathered from
individuals and organisations, have parallels with concerns that Lanier (2012)
mentions with regards to data on the internet. Newby’s talk of ‘intellectual
imperialism’ questions the rights of researchers to claim results as being
entirely their own when it comes to publishing; Lanier also warns of
individuals’ contributions to online material being anonymised, in a form of
‘digital Maoism’, where the finished product is regarded as more important than
the contributors. Beyond this there is also the usual tussle over rights to
‘claim’ conclusions, or the petty arguments as to what order names should appear
in on a publication!
The problem consistently rearing its head here is the lack of
incentive to collaborate effectively, if at all. Jarche (2013) regularly
discusses the failure of collaborative ventures, and possible means to break the
deadlock.
Participation – with the point raised above about
researchers not acknowledging their participants, this is another considerable
barrier to effective collaboration. The context of Newby’s (2010) examples is beginning
to differ substantially from my own, but some common principles remain, namely
that any data and results I gain should be treated carefully with respect to
participants, and ensure that they do not suffer from taking part in the study. I would usually expect that people within the same organisation would be more
understanding, but cross-organisational collaboration may be more tricky!
Plagiarism
– the problem of ‘digital Maoism’ raised by Lanier comes back into play, as
people increasingly treat information on the internet as being open-source for
all ends. Simply failing to even reference other peoples’ work is bad enough,
but often the data is claimed as one’s own work. Without adequate tools for
checking plagiarism, we cannot hope to meaningfully assess even undergraduate
work, let alone primary research, for plagiarism.
References:
- Jarche, H. (2013). Collaboration is a means not an end. Life in perpetual beta (blog) 14 February. Available at: http://www.jarche.com/2013/02/collaboration-is-a-means-not-an-end/ (Accessed February 2013)
- Lanier, J. (2012). Are we at the beginning of the rise of post human machine intelligence? Available at: <http://dpcloud.co/v3/enterprise/learningtech/index.php?option=com_dpcloud&v=play&p=7117&u=learningtech&cat=Keynotes&Itemid=2> (Accessed October 2012)
- Newby, P. (2010). Research Methods for Education. Pearson Education Limited.
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