Research Ethics, Open Science and CRIS

• Published in: Publications (Basel) Vol. 8; no. 4; p. 51
• Main Authors: Schöpfel, Joachim, Azeroual, Otmane, Jungbauer-Gans, Monika
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.12.2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Committees; Computer Science; COVID-19; current research information systems (CRIS); Ethics; Funding; Human subjects; Humanities and Social Sciences; Information management; Information systems; Library and information sciences; Metadata; Opacity; Open access; open science; Research centers; Research ethics; research information management; research management; Science; Values; open science; research management; research ethics; research information management; current research information systems (CRIS)
• ISSN: 2304-6775; 2304-6775
• DOI: 10.3390/publications8040051

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how current research information systems (CRIS) take into account ethical issues, especially in the environment of open science. The analysis is based on a review of the literature on research information management, CRIS, open science and research ethics. The paper provides a framework for the assessment of CRIS on two levels: are CRIS (= their data model, format, functionalities, etc.) compliant with ethical requirements from the research community, funding bodies, government, etc., i.e., can they appropriately process data on research ethics (protocols, misconduct, etc.), and which are the ethical issues of the development, implementation and usage of CRIS? What is the impact of new ethical requirements from the open science movement, such as integrity or transparency? Can CRIS be considered as ethical infrastructures or “infraethics”? Concluding this analysis, the paper proposes an empirical approach for further investigation of this topic. The originality of the paper is that there are very few studies so far that assess the implications of research ethics and open science on the CRIS.