Ethics Concerns Draw Many Questions, Some Answers

I offer a modest proposal. I recommend the establishment of a clearing-house for inquiries about research conduct and ethical behavior. There are many occasions when someone is uncertain about how to proceed and may be too junior or isolated to seek local guidance. In addition, ethics questions, particularly for a junior scientist, may be related to the senior scientist he or she would normally ask. Such a clearing-house would encourage a climate that would lead to good behavior. The method could be a moderated electronic mailing list where questions are posted in an anonymous, hypothetical, and timely fashion to ensure privacy.

Since this letter was written, I found a clearing-house, Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists (http://www.ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org ), by which nationwide toll-free telephone calls or e-mail questions are rapidly answered. The entity I propose could emulate AdviceLine. I’m grateful to Casey Bukro, their ethics contact, for details.

I helped set up our research misconduct rules here at Drexel University. Often, ethical problems are not amenable to conventional textbook analysis, and people can honestly and naively misunderstand good research practice.