Ethical aspects are an integral part for any type of research. Individual researchers, research projects and research institutions have responsibilities for ensuring that their research is responsible and complies with recognised ethical norms and guidelines. Research that concerns or engages laypeople has special requirements conducting ethically responsible research.
This document introduces the ethical protocol to be followed in the I-CHANGE project. It describes the principles of research ethics and research integrity in citizen science, and introduces a procedure covering the ethical aspects to be considered in various phases of the project, from engaging the participants to data collection and management. As the specificity of the ethical aspect may differ from one context to another, the procedure also lists additional literature and useful links for further information. In that sense the protocol does not provide answers to every single issue that might be faced, but rather the general norms and rules.
In case you are interested to learn more about the report, please send an email to info@ichange-project.eu.