A Framework for the Ethics of Open Education

What difference does openness make to the ethics of teaching and research? This paper approaches this question both from the perspective of research into the use of open educational resources (OER) in teaching and learning. An outline of the nature and importance of ethics in education research is provided before the basic principles of research ethics are examined through a discussion of traditional guidance provided by three UK research governance bodies: the Economics and Social Research Council; the British Education Research Association; and the British Psychological Society. The importance and foundation of institutional approval for research activities is analysed with several examples of the differences made by openness. It is argued that openness by its nature provokes particular issues for education researchers. A framework for understanding openness in education is then proposed based on basic meta-ethical positions (deontological; consequentialist; virtue). Used as a tool, the framework attempts to retain relevance in a variety of scenarios without requiring a dogmatic vision of openness (e.g. an insistence on open licensing). This framework is then evaluated in the context of the OER Research Hub project, which developed guidance for others in the form of an ‘ethics manual’ and online learning provided through the OER Research Hub’s ‘Open Research’ course hosted on P2PU’s School of Open. Use of the framework is intended to contribute to a better understanding of professional ethics for open practitioners.


The Emerging Open Paradigm
There is widespread recognition that the move to digitized, online and freely accessible learning resources brings profound ethical challenges.New information technologies continue to change the way we teach and interact.The philosopher of technology Luciano Floridi has suggested that "the information society has been brought about by the fastest growing technology in history [. . .]No previous generation has ever been exposed to such an extraordinary acceleration of technical power over reality, with corresponding social changes and ethical responsibilities" (Floridi, 2011, p. 4).New technologies bring new forms of human interaction, requiring fresh engagement with their ethical import.
This paper proposes a framework that focuses on the ethical significance of a particular group of educational technologies usually referred to as open education.A range of cultures, behaviours, practices and technologies from educational contexts may be described as 'open', including access to education or published research, policies, teaching methods, software, data sets and other educational resources.Open universities, now commonly found all around the world, have massively expanded access to education.Over the last decade-primarily in the form of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and Open Educational Resources (OER)-the open education movement has expanded opportunities for education worldwide.
"OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge."(Hewlett Foundation, undated.)Open Praxis, vol. 8 issue 2, April-June 2016, pp. 93-109 OER and MOOC encourage the production and sharing of high-quality educational materials at minimal cost.They represent a potential solution to many issues facing educators around the world and have attracted significant media interest around the world.In a time of austerity and fiscal uncertainty, openness has re-entered the popular consciousness and universities take steps towards integration of the 'open' model of education or learners take individual initiative to use them as an alternative to accruing debt through formal education.Open education has always identified with a strong ethical impulse, with many advocates directly inspired by what they see as a moral mission.
"When educational materials can be electronically copied and transferred around the world at almost no cost, we have a greater ethical obligation than ever before to increase the reach of opportunity.When people can connect with others nearby or in distant lands at almost no cost to ask questions, give answers, and exchange ideas, the moral imperative to meaningfully enable these opportunities weighs profoundly.We cannot in good conscience allow this poverty of educational opportunity to continue when educational provisions are so plentiful, and when their duplication and distribution costs so little."(Caswell, Henson, Jensen & Wiley, 2008) The moral mission of open education has also found a touchstone in international human rights legislation.The Paris Declaration on OER (UNESCO, 2012) builds on the previous ten years of OER advocacy as well as article 26 of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights (United Nations, 1948) and article 13.1 of The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (United Nations, 1966) in recognition of "the right of everyone to education".
While there are also prudential rather than explicitly moral motivations for adopting openness-an educator might move to using open textbooks with their students for purely pragmatic reasons, for instance-for many practitioners the ethical dimensions of open education are crucial because of a commitment to expanding access to education.Given this, there is remarkably little written about the ethics of open education.A review of sixty-eight empirical studies, systematic reviews and reports on MOOC (Rolfe, 2015) suggests there is "a paucity of literature" addressing the socioethical dimensions, noting that "many of the articles published provide empirical evidence showing that both forms of MOOC offer opportunities to learn and connect across geographical boundaries, yet we are at a point where social inclusion is polarised toward the more privileged" (Rolfe, 2015, p. 65).
Open education often does not live up to its own vision: in practice, unequal access to communications technology, unequal distribution of basic study skills, and unavailability of resources in certain languages mean that open approaches can act as a force for exclusion rather than inclusion (Emmanuel, 2013;Laurillard, 2014;Perryman, 2013).As openness increasingly enters the mainstream there is concern that the more radical ethical aspirations of the open movement are becoming secondary.Wiley (2015) for instance argues for a 'deeper' understanding of open ethics as a form of being with an ethic of care and sharing rather than a set of duties (such as a requirement to use open licensing).This paper claims to define neither a professional ethics of open nor a 'deeper' ethics of open.Rather, the intention is to provide a framework that will make it easier to build and identify these.

Professional ethics in education research
Ethics is now a fundamental part of institutional research practice, but this is a relatively recent state of affairs.Before World War II there were no internationally recognized standards for research involving human subjects.As is well known, physicians working for the Nazi regime performed acts of experimentation on many human beings including forced sterilization, hypothermia, trauma, the ingestion and topical application of noxious substances, pathological infections, and amputations, among others.These experiments are all the more horrific because of the lack of any free consent given by those experimented upon.At the military tribunal for war crimes known as the "Doctors ' Trial" (United States Adjutant General's Department, 1947) several of the defendants argued that the experiments carried out differed little from those carried out by other countries, and in any case the lack of international legislation distinguishing legal and illegal research meant that there was no grounds for disputing the legitimacy of their actions.In 1947, in the aftermath of war crimes trials, the Nuremberg Code (HHS, 2005) was produced to describe the conditions under which research involving human subjects could be considered ethical by setting out key principles that should inform research activity.Foremost among these principles is the idea of the informed consent of participants being fundamental to ethical practice.But also conveyed is the idea that experiments should be oriented towards the good of society; that harm and risk should be minimized; that researchers should be scientifically qualified; and that any party has the right to terminate the experiment at any point (ibid.).
Despite being very close to contemporary legislation governing research, the Nuremberg Code was never made legally binding.Further examples of unethical research emerged in the 20 th century, some of which remain quite contentious.For instance, the notorious Tuskagee experiments continued in the USA until 1972, where physicians withheld treatment of more than 600 syphilitic African American men in order to study the progression and spread of the disease (CDC, 2013).Others are less clear-cut, such as the "Tearoom Trade" ethnographic study that involved a sympathetic researcher posing a voyeur in public toilets in order to gather data on illicit homosexual activity without the consent of the participants (Humphreys, 1970).The 1970s saw much debate on expected standards in research, and by the end of the decade the Belmont Report (1979) set out the principles of ethical research that still acts as the basis for ethical experimental research. 1 In practice, ethics matters across the entirety of the research process, including design of the process and instruments; sampling; data collection; through to dissemination.All ethical guidance offered to researchers is predicated on the assumption that the researcher is in a position to exercise control over the research process as well as any smaller interventions that take place as part of the research.The responsibilities of researchers are also not limited only to their own actions, since we also expect a reasonable assessment of anticipated risk and consequences that might follow from an intervention.Researchers can also be thought to have ethical obligations for situations that are entirely out of their control.
The ethical guidelines for research involving human subjects offered by different professional bodies share the common origin outlined above.This can be illustrated by comparing advice from different professional bodies that advise researchers.Taking the example of the United Kingdom: the main bodies providing such advice are the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, 2015), the British Educational Research Association (BERA, 2014), and the British Psychological Society (BPS, 2010).Table 1 categorises some of the advice given according to the underlying key principles.
Open Praxis, vol.8 issue 2, April-June 2016, pp.93-109 While not a full systematic review, this comparison makes clear the great deal of overlap between the underlying principles.Similar guidance is given by other bodies around the world, including the federal regulations concerning the protection of human research subjects published by the USA Department of Human and Health Services (HHS, 2009).These similarities are best understood as resulting from a shared genealogy influenced by Nuremberg and Belmont.Researchers working in the USA must typically comply with these principles, and obtain the approval of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) for research involving human subjects.The processes for institutional approval of research involving human subjects are standardised, typically involving some form of risk assessment checklist, which shows that the advice outlined above, has been considered and appropriate actions taken.Because these principles have a shared genealogy (as outlined above) they are extremely similar at institutions throughout the world: to comply with institutional rules researchers need to have their proposal approved by an expert panel who consider the same key principles.All international signatories to the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, 2013) subscribe to a similar process for all research involving human subjects, and the Declaration acts as the basis for human research ethics worldwide. 2 Since these are principles rather than specific acts of guidance, they have often been interpreted in accord with new technological advances.For instance, the Association of Internet Research (AOIR, 2012) has published ethical recommendations regarding the use of the internet in research which reflects the affordances of working with large data sets, scraping information, curating and sharing information online, and so on.But even in this recent advice there is no mention of the importance of openness as an approach.

Research Beyond the Institution
The processes and principles described above are typically applied in institutional contexts through the mechanisms by which approval is offered to research activities such as collecting information through surveys; interviews; using data about individuals or groups; acceptable professional standards for analysis; and strategies for dissemination.However, research activities are increasingly taking place outside institutions using open, publicly available data and technologies to collect and analyze data as well as disseminate findings.Following Weller ( 2013), I will characterize extrainstitutional open research as 'guerrilla research'.For activities of this type, no further permissions are usually needed from research participants, as data used is already publically available and openly licensed.'Guerrilla' researchers do not typically collect primary data.Rather, their contribution is in the application of new methods to legacy data, or combining existing data sets in novel ways.Research of this type may be characterized as agile and quick to initiate and complete with a minimal business case.Unfettered by institutional or disciplinary rules, guerrilla researchers can explore alterative funding models (such as crowdsourcing) and alternative forms of dissemination (such as through blogs, social media, infographics and data visualizations).Examples of research of this type include: • Jordan (2014) used openly available and crowd-sourced data on MOOC enrolment and completion to perform a trends analysis using linear regression.This study showed that the average completion rate for MOOC was 10%, and that the massive enrolment seen in some early MOOC was falling as more courses became available.The data from the study was made openly available to others to corroborate results or perform alternative analyses.A blog post about the work went viral and became the de facto citation for MOOC completion rates (Weller, 2014, p. 14).• In the United Kingdom, the Freedom of Information Act (2000) provides for public access to information held by public authorities on the basis that "[o]penness is fundamental to the political health of a modern state" (Cabinet Office, 1997).Open data about government can form the basis of research enquiry.In 2009, Tony Hirst-a lecturer at The Open University, UK-created a Google Map which cross referenced open data about the expenses claims of Members of Parliament (MPs) with information about the distance of their constituency to London.The map highlighted MPs who claimed disproportionately more than others in a similar location and was picked up by national newspaper The Guardian (Arthur, 2009) leading to further maps and explorations of data.This work had a high impact despite being quick to initiate.• Another example is provided by Coal Run, Ohio.A mapping mash-up which cross-referenced city boundaries, water supply lines, and house occupancy by race showed that almost all the white households in Coal Run had water service while all but a few black homes did not.On the basis of this study residents successfully sued Zanesville and Muskingham County for $11 million in 2008 (Burtman, 2009).• In 2013, social network Facebook carried out a study into 'emotional contagion'.To find out whether the psychological states of its users can be manipulated showed 689,003 users either only 'positive' or 'negative' status updates to ascertain whether this would affect their mood.
The researchers found experimental evidence that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people and without cues (Kramer, Guillory & Hancock, 2014).The experiment remains controversial because no consent was sought from the unwitting Open Praxis, vol.8 issue 2, April-June 2016, pp.93-109 participants: it was argued that anyone who holds a Facebook account signs up to the terms and conditions of using Facebook and thus has given implied consent.This threshold would be unlikely to be high enough for most institutional review boards-especially given (i) the intention to cause psychological stress, and (ii) the impossibility of a small research team knowing what impact the study would have on such a large sample.Indeed, though the study involved researchers from Cornell University their IRB covered only the analysis of data and not its collection.Furthermore, because the work was for a private company it was believed that different ethical expectations apply: " [b] What these examples show is that quite powerful insights can be generated by making different or creative use of available data; but also that the insights they provide can be charged with ethical significance.Given that 'guerrilla research' can uncover socially important information, a case could be made that research of this type should be supported through, for instance, facilitating data mining and widely teaching the skills needed to curate, clean and analyze information.However, the examples given are rather selective and there remain several issues around this kind of research.Whether conducted in public or private institutions, unconventional research activities (and their outputs) are often not institutionally recognized.This can lead to a lack of institutional guidance or an unwillingness to endorse such activities, and a subsequent reluctance for faculty to engage with them.Furthermore, it can be unclear who owns the intellectual produced in 'guerrilla research' and this can also pose a barrier (though open licensing could potentially help by clarifying permissions).
While openly licensed data can be legally used according to the license provided, it should not be assumed that everything that can be done with the data is also ethically justified.When using data beyond its original study consent might not qualify as 'informed' and it becomes especially important to explain open licensing and open dissemination to ensure that consent is informed.Another risk with the use of third party datasets is the lack of connection between the researcher and the original context that produced the data and the risk of misinterpretation or misunderstanding of context.Longo & Drazen (2016, p. 276) express concern that "people who had nothing to do with the design and execution of the study but use another group's data for their own ends" could be seen as "research parasites" who try to subvert or appropriate the activities of others.This could potentially act as a barrier to openly sharing, or encourage researchers not to release data unless they believe it has no more potential value.
These examples demonstrate that clearer guidance is needed for educators and researchers working within open education.Yet, by the very nature of openness, it is extremely difficult to prescribe appropriate actions because of the diverse contexts of open educational practices.What is required, then, is a framework which can accommodate diverse elements, identify ethical elements and present them in a way that aids understanding, reflection, and practical decision-making.The proposed framework proceeds by delineating three key areas from moral philosophy.
Open Praxis, vol.8 issue 2, April-June 2016, pp.93-109 • Virtue theories (derived from Plato and Aristotle) emphasize the importance of virtue, character and experience in acting ethically and in accordance with one's nature.Virtue theorists hold that good judgment and excellence in ethics is a matter of practical wisdom (phronêsis).Integrity and independence can be understood as virtues in this sense.'Openness' itself could also be understood as a virtue (minimally in the sense of 'full disclosure' but perhaps as a wider 'ethic of open').
These theories are compared in Table 2.This paper proposes that these three theories can act as a useful anchor for thinking through ethical issues 'in the open'; that is, contexts where openness is emphasized and/or without institutional support.For the purposes of this framework we will focus on the three positions, here described in everyday language.

Applying the Framework: OER Research Hub
By way of illustration, the framework (table 3) will be examined through consideration of ethical issues in the OER Research Hub project.OER Research Hub ( 2015) was a research project funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to provide and aggregate leading research into the impact of open educational resources across higher education, further education, schooling and informal learning.In OER Research Hub a broad view of potential impact was taken so as avoid prescription about the possible direct or indirect results of OER implementation.The project methodology involved a collaboration program with high profile OER projects provided opportunities to reach out to a targeted international OER community engaged in establishing new OER practice and dissemination activities.In order to provide a universal structure for researching diverse contexts of OER application a series of eleven hypotheses about OER were addressed across the project.Evidence was then gathered for and against the hypotheses throughout the research.Headline findings from the project are summarized in the evidence report (de los Arcos et al., 2014) and the data report (de los Arcos et al., 2015).Each hypothesis reflected claims commonly made about the impact of OER.Supplementary to the evidence acquired from these targeted collaborations the project also curated secondary evidence from research literature.The data was used to generate a number of visualizations, and to map evidence (OER Impact Map, 2014) as well as writing more traditional quantitative and qualitative scientific papers.
There are several reasons why this project is interesting from the perspective of ethics and openness.• Although most of the research was conducted in the USA, the project worked with more than 7,000 research participants over 150 countries.This required sensitivity to a wide range of cultural norms and expectations;  (Pitt et al., 2014) on the relevance of openness for research.
Table 4 shows the (retrospectively) completed framework, summarizing some of the ethical concerns and considerations from the project.Each element of the grid identifies ethical aspects of the project that were affected by openness.
OER Research Hub was committed to exploring openness in practice and endeavored to be as open as possible.The goal of the project was to research open education through open methods while also determining what kind of methods might be considered 'open'.There are several aspects of this project that are important from the perspective of an open ethics:

Table 1 : Comparison of ethical research advice, UK professional bodies (categorized according to underlying principle)
Open Praxis, vol.8 issue 2, April-June 2016, pp.93-109 ecause this experiment was conducted by Facebook, Inc. for internal purposes, the Cornell University IRB determined that the project did not fall under Cornell's Human Research Protection Program"(Verma, 2014).While the dependence of such activities on open tools and technologies might be thought of as the emergence of a distinctive new discipline, the distinction between institutional and 'guerrilla' research should be thought of as a spectrum rather than a binary.Many institutional researchers work with open data sets, for example.But the correct balance between traditional and 'guerrilla' research activities has not been established, and these activities are often not recognized as valid by institutions.It should also be noted that openness extends research opportunities beyond the academy to people who may not have had a formal training in research ethics.

Table 3 : Uncompleted Framework
As a university research project involving human subjects, OER Research Hub was subject to the regulations of The Open University, UK.This necessitated ethical considerations in line with traditional expectations: compliance with UK Data Protection Act (1998) as well as relevant codes in other countries, such as and the USA's Protection of Human Subjects(HHS,  2009).In addition, all data collection activities complied with The Open University's 'Ethics Principles for Research Involving Human Participants' and 'Code of Practice'; • Risk assessments were carried out for the project as a whole and for individual collaborations where appropriate; • An open, collaborative research methodology (where questions were sometimes reworded or reordered according to the research needs of collaborators) meant that the epistemological integrity of the research could be called into question; • Use of third-party data respected the original consent given at the time;• Because of the 'open' approach to data collection special care must be taken with respect to statistical claims made on the basis of the data set; • While OER Research Hub was a project at a higher education institution, its outputs (instruments, data, etc.) could be used in a 'guerrilla' context and this was considered throughout their construction and dissemination; • Sharing results through the project website, blog and social media accounts helped to raise the profile of the work but meant that less polished work was presented to the world;•Open release of research data, open access publication and digital scholarship were nonetheless key elements of an open dissemination strategy; • The (redacted) research dataset was made openly available and with commentary (Farrow et al., 2015); • The experiences of the research team informed the production of a free open course with Peer 2 Peer University Open Praxis, vol.8 issue 2, April-June 2016, pp.93-109•