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Human-Computer Interaction

Research Ethics

Researchers in computer science (CS), software engineering (SE) and particularly human-computer interaction (HCI) conduct research using human subjects.

Human subjects are implicated whenever researchers

• examine human behaviour – such as web browsing
• collect personal information – such as opinions; or
• examine the products of human behaviour – for example, web sites, source code

Research with human subjects raises ethical issues that are not fully addressed in current texts on computing ethics or in existing codes of computing ethics. Human subjects research ethics are more explicitly dealt with in the social and biomedical sciences.

However, many research practices common in CS, SE, and HCI – such as experiments using employees – are not adequately covered in the social and biomedical codes of human subjects research ethics.

Moreover, in Australia, Canada, and the United States, much of the research with human subjects is required to comply with federal laws and/or codes of ethics authored by funding bodies. Once again, however, these codes do not deal properly with common CS, SE, and HCI research practices, in many cases simply prohibiting them. Consequently, compliance to existing codes of ethics can pose a problem for CS, SE, and HCI researchers.

In response to these issues, a project in research ethics is underway at the NRC Institute for Information Technology. Its goals are to:

1. introduce the issue of human subjects research ethics to the CS, SE, and HCI research communities
2. encourage these research communities to develop their own sets of guidelines for ethical human subjects research
3. provide concrete advice on increasing compliance to current federal and funding body regulations

Related NRC-IIT Publications

Research Contact

Dr. Janice Singer
Research Officer
Software Engineering
NRC Institute for Information Technology
1200 Montreal Road
Building M-50, Room 257
Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6
Telephone: +1 (613) 991-6346
Fax: +1 (613) 952-7151
E-mail: Janice Singer

Business Contact

Dr. George Forester
Business Development Officer
Business Development Office, NCR
NRC Institute for Information Technology
1200 Montreal Road
Building M-50, Room 203
Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6
Telephone: +1 (613) 993-3478
Fax: +1 (613) 952-0074
E-mail: George.Forester@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca