Author: N/A
Publisher: LGBT Foundation
Publication Year: N/A
Summary: The following article is a guide to navigating ethics issues that can arise when performing research (specifically on members of the LGBT community). The guide is split up into 5 sections: 1). Integrity and quality: researchers must ask themselves if they have the skills necessary for this research and whether they have sufficient understanding of the communities that they’re researching; 2). Fully informing researchers and participants: how informed are the participants and research staff? What factors might prevent the researcher from fully informing participants; 3). Confidentiality and Anonymity: how will the data be stored? How can researchers ensure privacy and confidentiality; 4). Voluntary participation, free from coercion: are the participants providing informed consent? Is there coercion; and 5). Avoiding harm: how can the researcher avoid harming the participants and the research staff? These principles should be considered when performing research generally but are particularly important when working with LGBT participants as there are unique risks of “outing” participants who may not be comfortable with their identities being known or discrimination may be involved in some way. As data scientists we aren’t usually performing research ourselves, but I think many of these considerations are still helpful to keep in mind when working with data.