Emerging technologies and research ethics: Developing editorial policy using a scoping review and reference panel.

BACKGROUND

Emerging technologies and societal changes create new ethical concerns and greater need for cross-disciplinary and cross-stakeholder communication on navigating ethics in research. Scholarly articles are the primary mode of communication for researchers, however there are concerns regarding the expression of research ethics in these outputs. If not in these outputs, where should researchers and stakeholders learn about the ethical considerations of research?

OBJECTIVES

Drawing on a scoping review, analysis of policy in a specific disciplinary context (learning and technology), and reference group discussion, we address concerns regarding research ethics, in research involving emerging technologies through developing novel policy that aims to foster learning through the expression of ethical concepts in research.

APPROACH

This paper develops new editorial policy for expression of research ethics in scholarly outputs across disciplines. These guidelines, aimed at authors, reviewers, and editors, are underpinned by: a cross-disciplinary scoping review of existing policy and adherence to these policies;a review of emerging policies, and policies in a specific discipline (learning and technology); and,a collective drafting process undertaken by a reference group of journal editors (the authors of this paper).

RESULTS

Analysis arising from the scoping review indicates gaps in policy across a wide range of journals (54% have no statement regarding reporting of research ethics), and adherence (51% of papers reviewed did not refer to ethics considerations). Analysis of emerging and discipline-specific policies highlights gaps.

CONCLUSION

Our collective policy development process develops novel materials suitable for cross-disciplinary transfer, to address specific issues of research involving AI, and broader challenges of emerging technologies.

Informations de copyright

Copyright: © 2024 Knight et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The research reported was instigated as a collaboration between the Journal of Learning Analytics (JLA), Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET), and the British Journal of Educational Technology (BJET), by the lead author, who was a previous co-editor-in-chief of the JLA. The authors acknowledge BJET co-editor-in-chief Cathy Lewin, who joined the journal later in this process, and thus did not participate in authoring this piece. The views expressed are those of the authors, and may not represent the views of the journals, scholarly societies, or other organisations to which they are affiliated. The work was begun over the course of the lead author’s sabbatical, which included periods co-located at UCL and KTH / the Swedish Digital Futures research centre, supporting direct interaction with editors based at those institutions. During the write up of this research, the lead author received funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Award (DECRA) Fellowship (DE230100065), and Discovery Project (DP, DP240100602). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.