Ethical aspects in research data management

Abstract

The CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) and the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) are among the main principles for good scientific practice and ethically sound research data management. Ethics issues arise whenever research involves human participants and their cells or tissues; personal data; rare plants or seeds; animals; artificial intelligence as well as methods, materials; or experiments that could harm the environment, research staff, or participants.

The first step towards ethical research data management lies in the identification of ethical issues and performing risk-benefit analysis for the subjects involved and research outcomes related to science and society. Information security and data protection analyses might be needed if personal data will be collected. Depending on the study design and data collection involved, the study can be subject to special permission from one of the ethics commissions at the faculties of the University of Bern or from the Cantonal Ethics Commission. Data security aspects should be accurately considered by design using new tools, technologies, and infrastructure.

The Open Science Team at the University Library of Bern recommends licensing research data under the CC 0 or the newest version of the CC BY licenses to allow maximal reusability. If data cannot be openly published due to ethical or legal reasons, metadata, and supplementary material can be published under CC0 to fulfill funders' agencies' requirements.