This post follows on from an earlier post: TM470 Considering LSEPI. The difference between this blog and the earlier one is that this article places more emphasis on the ethics bit, specifically, how to treat participants ethically.
Before looking at anything specific, it’s useful to remind ourselves of what learning outcomes in TM470 relate to ethics:
LO10. Identify and address the legal, social, ethical and professional issues (LSEPIs) and the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) concerns that may arise during the development and use of computing and IT systems.
To gain a distinction for this learning outcome, you need to provide evidence to show that you have “comprehensively identified the relevant LSEPIs and EDI concerns arising during development and use and modified their project work to take these into account and behaved professionally in all aspects of [your] project work.”
At the beginning of your project it is very likely that you will be gathering requirements from stakeholders. During the middle of your project, you may well ask stakeholders for opinions about your intermediate designs, or emerging solutions; maybe asking their opinions about some prototypes. Towards the end of your project, you may (or may not) choose to carry out an evaluation. Your final project evaluation may involve stakeholders, who might be potential users of whatever product or system you have created.
Treating participants ethically
Given that you are likely to use participants throughout your project, what do you need to ensure they are treated in an ethical way?
A fellow TM470 tutor, Kawal Banga, offers the following useful summary: “you will need to consider how you are collecting data, where you are storing it, what stakeholder contact details you are storing, how you are ensuring anonymity and confidentiality, what will happen with the data on completion of the project, etc.“
Hold onto these points.
Planning your project
TMA 1 is all about identifying a project, describing its aims, creating a plan and sharing it with your tutor. TMA 2 is all about showing that you have made some progress on your project and beginning to write about the ethical issues.
TMA01 states that:
“You will be considering in detail any legal, social, ethical and professional issues relating to your choice in TMA 02, but at this point you should consider whether these are likely to be serious enough to mean your project choice is inappropriate.”
It directs you to read some resources that have been prepared by the module team.
Before you begin writing your first TMA, do make sure you find the time to have a discussion with your tutor about your project and its aims.
In many cases, one of the first activities that you will carry out will be to establish requirements which may mean that you will need to talk to stakeholders. A stakeholder is, of course, anyone who has a vested interest in your project, or will be affected by its implementation or creation. Before you speak with anyone, you need to consider (as Kawal pointed out) how to collect data, what data you are collecting, and where you might be storing it.
TMA02 states that:
“If your project involves you working with human participants, you should include, as an appendix, your TMA02 LSEPI Form, found in the LSEPI Templates folder.”
The point being made here is that you may need to address ethical issues before you get to your second TMA. Gathering requirements may mean working with people.
Working with stakeholders
When gathering requirements, if you need to consult people, it is important that you seek permission from those who you speak with and their line managers. Here is a suggestion about different resources that you should consider preparing before you interview anyone:
A project information sheet. This could be a single printed page, which you could then read before you go ahead with any data collection.
A consent form. This form is used to secure permission to gather data, and also to store data. More information about storing data can be seen in a related blog: Writing successful data management plans.
A set of interview questions, a set of survey questions and forms that can be used to gather responses.
Do consider sharing each of these with your tutor; they may well have some good ideas about how they might be improved.
Evidencing an ethical approach
When your examiner reads your project report, they will look for a description of what you have done and evidence that shows you have done what you have said you have done. Using a concept from creative writing, it is important to show the reader, rather than to tell the reader.
You can show the examiner you have adopted an ethical approach by sharing evidence. You might, for example, share the following appendices:
- Provide a copy of a project information sheet.
- Provide samples of signed consent forms. You don’t need to provide copies of all the signed consent forms; one of each broad group of stakeholders will be enough. Make sure you hide any names and signatures. There is no reason why the examiner needs to see these.
- Provide copies of any interview scripts or data collection forms.
Each appendix should, of course, be referenced within the body of your report.
Resources
The module website contains a number of helpful resources and pages. In particular, within the Legal, Social, Ethical and Professional issues resource, the following two sections are particularly useful:
- Working with human participants
- Appendix A Guidelines for conducting research with human participants
There is also a folder called LSEPI templates which can be found within the study materials section. At the time of writing, this folder contains the following files:
- TMA02 LSEPI Form
- consent-form-template
- participant-information-sheet-template
- EMA LSEPI Form
Do take the time to have a look at each of these files, and reflect on how they might be used within your project.
When you submit your EMA you need to include a completed copy of the EMA LSEPI form as an appendix (which is something that be easily forgotten).
These above points offer some very practical advice about what you need to do to provide evidence of working with participants. This is, arguably, a very narrow treatment of the connection between your project and ethics.
Thinking in an ethical way means that you need to consider the impact on any digital tool or product. If you are interested what this means, a good starting point is Carissa Weitz’s Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics (Oxford University press). You might find a chapter in this handbook that connects with the aim of your project.
There is a requirements that your write about legal, social and ethical issues within your TMA 2 submission. If you're unsure about what this mean, or how to begin, a good bit of advice is, of course, find some time to speak with your tutor.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Kawal Banga and the TM470 module team.