Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I've been looking at this exact same matter this week (rough draft here), so the arrival of this paper (14 page PDF) is fortuitous. The authors argue that "there is significant variation among the practices of Research Ethics Boards (REBs) at Canada's universities, particularly when they respond to requests from researchers outside their own institution." The Tri-Council is Canada's three major research funding bodies, and their code of ethics (called TCPS 2) is here. And I just so happen to be reviewing an online course based on this guide. There's more from the Government of Canada on research ethics here.

Anyhow, the study looked at policies from 69 universities, and itself was subject to research review at a number of universities. The authors found some requests for revisions perplexing, for example from one (of 18) universities "was the requirement that we add their university's logo to our survey's informed consent page." Additionally, "The history of ethics policy development in Canada has left social scientists questioning whether their system is oriented too heavily toward the medical sciences."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 6:58 p.m.

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