Public workshop on Digital Research Methods and Public Expectations

In the DSI Ethics Community, a team of researchers interviewed Swiss citizens to understand their views about ethical challenges and requirements in relation to the use of digital research methods. We invite you to discuss these preliminary results and their potential relevance & implementation to formulate a public legitimacy framework of digital research methods. The leading questions for the discussion of the event are:

• Under which conditions is the use of digital research methods legitimate?
• What are the gaps and needs for research design and communication about digital methods that aim to increase public trust?
• Do public views differ depending on who is using digital methods, in what context and with what data types? How should or should not these different views impact the use of digital research methods?

For more information on the DSI-Ethics Community project “Public Legitimacy of Digital Research Methods”, please see the project website.

When & Where

• 30. January 2023, 2 – 5 pm, followed by Apéro
• DSI, Rämistrasse 69, 8001 Zürich

Background

The accessibility and scope of publicly available data resulting from the growing digitalization of society led to unprecedented opportunities and challenges of public data use for researchers using digital research methods. Digital methods are “the use of online and digital technologies to collect and analyze data for research purposes”. Despite their value and the availability of public digital data for research communities, many ethical challenges s that these new opportunities pose and are directly related to citizens, which have yet to be addressed.