Dr. Michael Zimmer, professor of computer science in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Center for Data, Ethics, and Society, participated in an invitation-only workshop on “Operationalizing Ethics in Online Safety and Research on AI” hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The workshop is part of an ongoing project led by OSTP and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to draft privacy and ethics guidelines for researchers working with data from online platforms.
Many members of the computer science research community are aware that human subject-centered research ethics regulations were not designed for the computer science and AI research community and have developed alternative ethics committees, rubrics, checklists, and assessment tools to help researchers, funders, and publications navigate ethics and privacy issues in the computing space. This event brought together people and organizations who have operationalized or are thinking deeply about operationalizing researcher access to pervasive data to discuss and simulate the operationalization of ethics in computing research.
Zimmer presented findings and ongoing research from his NSF-funded projects “PERVADE: Pervasive Data Ethics for Computational Research” and “Development Educational Resources for the Ethical Use of Pervasive Data.”
