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When Ethics and Law Clash a Look at the Ethical, Legal, and Moral Issues Arising from the Boston College Belfast Oral Project

  • Sinead C. Borgersen EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: February 1, 2017

Abstract

This paper explores the ethical, legal, and moral Issues arising from the Boston College Belfast Oral Project initiated in 2001 across scholarly and non-scholarly sources. The researchers of the project entered into an understanding of confidentiality with the college for the project and the participants. An international subpoena request was served between the UK to the US government in 2011 requesting the project records. Bray (2011. “The Whole Story Behind the Boston College Subpoenas.” Chronicle of Higher Education 57 (41):B4–B5. http://chronicle.com/), Geoghegan (2012. “If Trust is lost, Future Promises Naught but Troubles for Research.” Times Higher Education 2033:28–9. https://www.timeshighereducation.com), King (2014. “‘Say Nothing’: Silenced Records and the Boston College Subpoenas.” Archives & Records 35 (1):28–42. doi:10.1080/23257962.2013.859573), Lowman and Palys (2012. “Defending Research Confidentiality ‘To the Extent the Law Allows:’ Lessons From the Boston College Subpoenas.” Journal of Academic Ethics 10 (4):271–97. doi:10.1007/s10805-012-9172–5), McMutrie (2014. “Secrets from Belfast.” Chronicle of Higher Education 60 (20):1–1. http://chronicle.com) and Neuenschwander (2014. Major Legal Challenges Facing Oral History in the Digital Age.” In Oral History in the Digital Age, edited by D. Boyd, S. Cohen, B. Rakerd, and D. Rehberger. Institute of Library and Museum Services. http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/major-le), discuss the continuing issues surrendering the interview tapes from the project. The issues are presented viewed through Mason’s (1986. “Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age.” MIS Quarterly 10 (1):5–12. doi:10.2307/248873) model of the four ethical issues of the information age: Privacy, Accuracy, Property and Accessibility (PARA). The issues are viewed within framework of PARA, with lessons learned, the impact to future oral history academic research and a discussion on possible future research.

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Published Online: 2017-2-1
Published in Print: 2017-7-26

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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