Hadassah Lavianlivi

CSIT 101
Information Literacy
Ethics
A current issue the technological world is facing today is the problem with
Ethics pertaining to online research. There are many regulations that must be
followed, but sadly are being neglected. In the first source I found about ethical
research there was a study done on Communities of Practice. Communities of
Practice (COP) are online groups that form to share, gain, and teach information
about a certain topic. To be part of one of these communities one must share in a
common interest or goal, if there do not then they have no reason to be there. A
group of researchers decided to create profiles in order to gain access to one of
these communities they found online to understand how these communities and
their participants work. The actual community members were unaware that these
researchers were using false names and information to gain access to their
community to collect data. These Communities are meant to be safe places for
people to share information and experiences, having researchers falsify information
to gain access online is highly inappropriate and unethical. Peoples privacy could
be breached and Personal information can be leaked online or shared without their
knowledge, when these things happen the repercussions can be detrimental to their
lives.
The computer search on Ethics and online research was run on to different
search engines: Google and bing. The exact same key words were used for both
search engines. Both search engines produced very impressive and reputable
information. From both Google and bing I found college journals who had written
about the Ethics topic. They both had in-depth information and showed vast
knowledge in the topic. Both were great sources.

Hadassah Lavianlivi
CSIT 101
Information Literacy
The first online source found was part of the Stanford University
Encyclopedia, a very trustworthy and reliable source. The article was originally
written in 2012, but modified in early 2016. This article definitely was on target
when it came to the topic of internet research ethics. It touched on the ethical
issues facing researchers today and how privacy is being neglected in research
studies. The article asked whether it was even okay to just use information found
online, or if there are laws and violations being broken by doing so. It also
explained that researchers think it is okay to just erase a name from data, but in
truth that is definably not enough to protect someones identity. The article was
extremely informative and proved itself to be trustworthy. The goal was to bring
awareness to a problem facing the new technological age, it truly did so.
The second online article was a document produce by The University of
California, Berkley and the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects. The article
was written in late 2015 so there has been no revision or modification as of now.
This article was too a very reliable source, even though it had no author it was
written by Berkley college which is assumingly a trustworthy and honorable
institution. The document explained that ethics of internet research has become
extremely important in the recent year s and there are certain rules and regulations
that must be followed in order to use any information found or produced on the
internet. The document also touched on the idea of gaining consent from people
online to use information or data about them; they explained that gaining the
consent may be disruptive and cause distress to the person. The article as well was
very informative and shared some interesting points and ideas.

Hadassah Lavianlivi
CSIT 101
Information Literacy
The CCBC database was used to find reliable and peer- reviewed research
about the topic. The key words typed in were internet research and ethics. The first
article was part of the ebscohost database, a very well known database used by
many schools and college students. This journal article explained that the internet is
considered to be big data, and that an entire research study can be done online.
When doing online research, a researcher must ask the following questions: what is
private? What is identifiable? Are they doing enough to protect the subjects? The
risk of distribution and other questions like these must be asked in order to truly
insure the privacy of subjects. There are people who believe that any post online is
really public, but in truth when people post things they think that information can
only be seen by those they give permission to. This journal article was very
informative and well written.
The second article was found on the ebscohost database as well. This journal
article reviewed a scenario that occurred with researcher done on a medical chat
room. The data and information in the study was approved, but many questions the
ethics pertaining to the privacy of the subjects involved. After a short while the
study was removed, many believed this was done to do the research not completely
following the regulations of the Institutional Review Boards (IRB) when it came to
the regulations of subject privacy. This scenario circles back to the first article in this
essay, the idea of chat rooms and the issue of researchers gaining access to chat
rooms under false pretenses is a serious issue in the researching world. There must
be respect and consideration for those who join chat room communities; they feel
they are in a safe place, but when researchers lurk in these communities that
privacy is breached.

Hadassah Lavianlivi
CSIT 101
Information Literacy
As explained through these five articles, internet research and ethics is a real
issue in our new technological world. The consent and privacy of subjects is vital
when obtaining and recording research online. There are laws and regulations that
must be followed in order to keep the privacy, without those implemented
regulations many peoples reputations could be destroyed through internet studies.
May we continue to do research in the world using the aid of the internet, and also
protect those who are the subjects in online studies.

Bibliography
Alakurt,Turgay. From Active Lurkers to Community Leaders: Who are They and What
They do. Turkish
Online Journal of Distance Educaion vol. 17 issue 1(2016): p3-15. Ebscohost. Journal
Article. 23 Feb. 2016
Buchanan, Elizabeth A. and Zimmer, Michael. Internet Research Ethics. The
Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy 22 Jun. 2012. Encyclopedia. 1
March 2016
Coons, Sue. Internet Research Issues for IRB: context is Important in Determining
Privacy of Information. Research Practitioner (2014): p76-79. Ebscohost. Journal
Article. 5 March 2016
Internet-based Research. University of California, Berkley. Committee for
Protection of Human Subjects Jul. 2015, Document. 23 Feb. 2016
Pierson, Charon A. Ethical Decision-making in Internet Research: Another Slant on
the Recursive Fury Debate. Journal of the American Association of Nurse
Practitioners (2014): p 353-354. Ebscohost. Journal Article-editorial. 5 March 2016

Hadassah Lavianlivi
CSIT 101
Information Literacy