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In this discussion board we are going to discuss why ethics is a vital component of research. First I am going to describe what ethics is, ethics is the moral principles that govern a person's behavior or in my words do what is right no matter what.

A few of the reasons that ethics is important when it comes to research because it gives the research credibility and gives it value when people look at the work that you have done and not think that it has come from an untrustworthy source. The second thing that ethics in research promote is values that help different people and organizations to work together because a lot of times a research project has more than just one person working on it and using values will instill trust and respect among co-researchers. Another reason ethics is important in research is making sure that you give credit to the data, patent, authorship and peer review source so you do not infringe or plagiarize their work which makes your research not as trustworthy. The third reason is to make the researcher accountable to the public what this means is that the public investors who trust there money with these researchers are held accountable, pretty self explanatory. The next is public support. This means that if you are trustworthy it will be easier for the public to trust that you will do the right thing when it comes to conducting your research. Lastly is moral and social values, what this means is you take in to consideration the rights and welfare of the environment, the humans in the area, and the animals under governed regulations. 

In conclusion, having good ethics means having good values that you have incorporated into your research. The biggest thing about ethics in research or even ethics period is doing the right thing no matter what. It is easy for people to do the right thing when people are looking, but can those same people do the right thing when no one is looking or even around? That is the million dollar question, and in the end depending on what you are working on your research can be the difference between life and death or even just causing physical harm to someone or something.

Over the years, ethics has become a critical aspect of research. Two events that played significant roles in the consensus for stronger ethical research guidelines were the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial following World War II and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The Nuremberg trials consisted of the German scientists performing gruesome experiments on captive human subjects and the Tuskegee study involved withholding effective treatment methods for African Americans who were purposefully infected with the Syphilis virus.  These events paved the way for discussion on the need for anyone doing research to abide by ethical principles that protect those being researched.

There are many principals within research where ethical conduct plays a part. They are voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, anonymity and right to service. (Trochin, 2006) Voluntary participation is pretty self-explanatory; people should not be coerced into doing something that they don't want to do. Informed consent simply means that participants are informed about all aspects of the research, not just the ones that will get them to participate. People need to know everything about the research before making the decision to participate. They also need to know what their risk of harm is. Will this research hurt them either physically or mentally? As with all research, confidentiality is important to participants. They need to know that their identity will not be given freely to those who are not directly involved in the study. A stricter version of confidentiality is anonymity. This simply means that the participants will remain anonymous to even the researchers themselves. Finally, there is the right to service which means the control group who is not actually receiving the treatment may feel they are not getting the same service as those who in the control group who are receiving the treatment. All of these principles must be looked at and adhered to when conducting research.

If in doubt, there is an avenue available for researches to verify that their research is ethically acceptable. When this questions exists, researches can submit their research to the Institutional Review Board, or IRB. The IRB will review the proposal and decide if it meets the ethical requirements of research. This review not only protects the researcher, but also those being researched.