A Conversation Regarding Ethics in Information Systems Educational Research

Abstract

Should ethics be a significant importance in information systems educational research? In this chapter, I reflect on my heuristic and psychologically-oriented self-study concerning some ethical improprieties which I committed during the data collection phase of an information systems educational research programme. As part of this heuristic reflection, I engaged in a number of self dialogues in the form of a conversation between various characters. Reported in this paper is one of these dialogues, concerning broad issues of ethics and research and discussing the notion of wisdom, maturity, meaning, and virtue. I begin by asserting that this is even more so when considering research investigating and using new media, such as the world wide web, in which acceptable ethical practices have yet to be established and consolidated.