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Formal Ethics and Codes of Practice

American Association for Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices
Council of American Survey Research Organizations Code of Standards and Ethics for Market, Opinion, and Social Research
Direct Marketing Association Ethical Guidelines

The above three websites provide the codes of ethics for two areas of applied communication—public opinion research and direct marketing.

American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct
Many of the ethical principles set out by the APA apply to communication research. APA style is the publication style used to format many communication research papers.

Association of Social Anthropologists of the U.K. and Commonwealth Ethical Guidelines for Good Research Practice
This site, in addition to providing ethical guidelines, sets out all the parties that can impact and be impacted by human subjects research—research participants; sponsors, funders, and employers; colleagues and the discipline; governments and society at large.

Illinois Institute of Technology Center for the Study of Ethics in the Profession
This site has hundreds of codes of ethics from a variety of disciplines, including communication. In addition to the codes, you can find discussion on the value of having such codes and guidelines on constructing a code for your own organization.

National Communication Association Code of Professional Responsibilities for the Communication Scholar/Teacher
The above code of professional responsibilities for one of the major U.S. academic communication associations sets out professional standards for research, teaching, and publication.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bioethics Resources
This central site provides information on a variety of topics related to research on human subjects in the United States.

Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
This site provides information on human subjects research and research ethics.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Research Protection
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Informed Consent
The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) provides leadership in the protection of the rights, welfare, and wellbeing of subjects involved in research conducted or supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). OHRP is part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) in the Office of the Secretary (OS), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee
This site at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides a timeline and information on the Tuskegee study.

Remarks by the President [Bill Clinton] in Apology for Study Done in Tuskege
CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.

Internet Research Ethics

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Report on Ethical and Legal Aspects of Human Subjects Research in Cyberspace
This report of a 1999 workshop lists specific recommendations related to Internet research, ranging from setting up a website of sample informed consent forms to the possibility of special certification for online researchers.

Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)
The AoIR is a cross-disciplinary association of scholars and students and the source of the AoIR guide on ethical decision making and online research, at aoir.org/ethics.

Charting Ethical Questions by Data and Type—a summary table to help decision making
The above site presents commonly asked ethical questions for different Internet contexts, such as special interest forums, and avatar-based social spaces.

eResearch Ethics
This site is a source of papers and ongoing discussions about “e-research.”

International Journal of Internet Research Ethics
This cross-disciplinary journal publishes theoretical and practical articles on Internet research ethics.

O’Riordan, K. (2010). Internet research ethics: Revisiting the relations between technologies, spaces, texts and people. eResearch Ethics.
Discusses the differences between the Internet as social text and as social space, and the notion that new media genres may not sit neatly under either the assumption of informed consent, or the assumption that there are no human subjects.