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Crowdsourced Research: Vulnerability, Autonomy, and Exploitation
1Senior lecturer in the Centre for University Core at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
Ethics & Human Research
|January 23, 2020
Summary
Crowd workers in research are not always vulnerable due to autonomy issues. Exploitation offers a better ethical framework for evaluating crowdsourced research participant protocols.
Area of Science:
- Social Sciences
- Behavioral Sciences
- Educational Research
Background:
- Crowd workers are increasingly used in research.
- Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) face more crowdsourced research protocols.
- Ethical considerations for crowd worker participants require clear guidelines.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the vulnerability of crowd workers in research.
- To develop a heuristic for ethical evaluation of crowdsourced research protocols.
- To propose an alternative ethical framework for crowdsourced research.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of threats to crowd worker autonomy (undue inducements, dependent relationships).
- Application of Alan Wertheimer's exploitation framework.
- Case study using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform.
Main Results:
- Autonomy-based arguments regarding inducements and relationships are inconclusive for crowd workers.
- Exploitation framework provides a more applicable lens for ethical evaluation.
- Identified specific suggestions for ethical reviewers.
Conclusions:
- Rethinking ethical evaluation of crowdsourced research is necessary.
- The exploitation framework offers a robust approach to protect crowd workers.
- Provides practical guidance for IRBs and researchers in crowdsourced studies.
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