Over the past decades the global research community has become increasingly aware of the responsibility researchers bear when carrying out research involving human subjects. This ethical awareness covers a variety of disciplines, which nowadays also includes technical disciplines such as Computer Science.
Ethical permissibility of research has, to an increasing extent, become the subject of consideration within multiple research departments of universities. In the area of Computer Science principles and guidelines have been developed by professional organisations like the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and, within the Netherlands, the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. These principles and guidelines have inspired several Dutch universities to develop their own Ethical procedures and protocols.
The goal of the IPN workgroup Ethics is to provide a platform to share information and knowledge regarding the various Ethical Committees that already exist or that are being formed within the various Computer Science departments within the Netherlands. A first step is to collect and link to the various websites and documents that are already available.
You can find more information about this and other workgroups here.
Related links:
• The Association for Computing Machinery’s Committee on Professional Ethics
• KNAW – Ethische en Juridische Aspecten van Informatica Onderzoek
• University of Twente – Ethics Committee EEMCS