PLO 5. Exemplify ethical practices of technology usage.

Educators work in a world of ethics. Textbooks, technology, students work, instructors work, and works of others are a few of the many subjects educators have to use ethics and sound judgement relating to the use of each one. When working with work and programs produced by others and human subjects, also known as students, it is imperative to have a plan of action on everyday ethical issues that may be encountered. One area of focus is how to help students succeed and remain ethical in doing so. In an assignment created for a research course, I created an plan of action to do research helping older adults become comfortable learning new technology.

           

When human subjects are used to conduct research autonomy, justice, and benefice are of extreme importance (Frankel & Siang, 1999). Autonomy is the protection of participants identity. Justice is making sure everyone will benefit equally from the study (Frankel & Siang, 1999). Benefice is ensuring that the benefits outweigh the risks. Since my research included participants use of technology informed consent was also of extreme importance. “Informed consent ensures that research participants enter the research of their free will and with an understanding of the study and any possible dangers that may arise.” (Mills, 2013). When students, or study participants, trust teachers, or researchers, with private information it is with the expectations that their personal information will not be shared, that they will benefit from the instruction, or study, and that they will be treated fairly.  

“With respect to data storage, privacy and confidentiality may be inadvertently breached when the researcher stores the data on a computer with Internet access and unauthorized persons hack into the system. Even if material is erased from a computer, this only involves making the disk space formally occupied by the erased material available to be written over by new files. Until such time as this disk space is reissued, the erased material may still be recovered” (Frankel & Siang, 1999). When thinking about revising my work this part of the research is what came to mind. How was I going to protect the information of my participants, especially the technology that would be used in the research? I knew to ask participants for permission to conduct the study, protect their identity, and make sure the benefits of the study outweighed the risks, but protecting their online production was just as important. In order to do this I included a section under ethics portion of my research proposal defining the way participants work, online accounts, and production will be handled during and after the research is conducted. The most challenging aspect of this change came from visualizing what ethical decisions would come up in hypothetical research project. It took some time to come up with a plan, but I believe the changes would benefit potential participants. This information is highlighted in red to easily distinct the revised material.

            In conclusion, while every instance that an ethical decision needs to made cannot be anticipated it is good to have a general plan of action in mind to guide ethical practice. Some of these ethical decisions include adhering to copyright laws, properly handling students’ work, creating lesson plans that accommodate different learning types, as well as informing students of their rights and responsibilities. In the research proposal made,  ethical practice in conducting research were considered. Since my participants will be working with technology and creating web accounts and working with programs online it was imperative that I found a way to incorporate safe ethical practices for storing and disposing of their work.
  

References

Frankel, M. S., & Siang, S. (1999). Ethical and legal aspects of human subjects research on the     Internet. Published by AAAS online. Retrieved from Google Scholar             https://nationalethicscenter.org/resources/187/download/ethical_legal.pdf

Mills (2013-01-30). Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher, 5/e (Page 32). Pearson HE,    Inc.. Kindle Edition.