The current system of human-subject-research oversight and protections has developed over the last 5 decades. The principles of conducting human research were first developed as the Nuremberg code to try Nazi war criminals. The 3 basic elements of the Nuremberg Code (voluntary informed consent, favorable risk/benefit analysis, and right to withdraw without repercussions) became the foundation f...

In recent times, survey reports on ethical infractions at workplaces and instances of fraud have shocked and disappointed the corporate world and stakeholders alike. Several infractions however go unreported even in organisations which have ethical codes that offer a mechanism for reporting. This raises the question as to why employees pass off infractions as being 'all right' at work and how s...

This article presents a summary of existing codes of media ethics and analyzes their impact on mass media practices. It then attempts to develop an Islamic perspective of mass media ethics by focusing on the moral guidelines provided by Quran and the tradition of Prophet Muhammad (the Sunnah). The paper also examines the issues, problems, and challenges in operationalizing these guidelines into...

Researchers and students at biological field stations, especially in remote areas, are subject to leaving "footprints," as we conduct research, work, and live in sensitive ecosystems. These footprints include travel, personal trash and waste, and field equipment (e.g. flagging, tree markers, plot markers, trail markers, monitoring devices, etc.). In this commentary, we argue that the field of p...

In research ethics, provision of potential benefits to study participants is linked to the principles of beneficence and distributive justice. However, in most research ethical codes the notion of benefit is only superficially elaborated which is extended in vague and general benefit assessments in research proposals and in Research Ethical Committee's (REC) recommendations. The issue gains add...

Mentoring programs pair youth who are perceived to be at risk for poor outcomes with volunteers who are trained to provide support. Although mentoring has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, the ethical challenges inherent in relationship-based interventions have been given insufficient attention among researchers and practitioners. Rarely acknowledged is the potential for harm that ...

Research shows that many organizations overlook needs and opportunities to strengthen ethics. Barriers can make it hard to see the need for stronger ethics and even harder to take effective action. These barriers include the organization's misleading use of language, misuse of an ethics code, culture of silence, strategies of justification, institutional betrayal, and ethical fallacies. Ethics ...

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This paper presents a case for allocating health care resources so as to maximise Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). Throughout parallels are drawn with the grounds for adopting utilitarianism. QALYs are desirable because they are essential for human flourishing and goal-attainment. In conditions of scarcity the principle of QALY maximisation may involve unequal treatment of different groups ...

As combating plagiarism is a shared responsibility of all, this article focuses on presenting the current situation of higher education in Yemen. The critical review of four implementable policy documents and interviews revealed the absence of research ethics code, research misconduct policy, and institutional policies in the country. This led to the presence of several acts of research dishone...