
Considering font size, labels, and colors are of utmost importance and part of the ethical considerations for all data scientists.
Full Answer
What are the ethical issues in statistics?
By obscuring data or taking only the data points that reinforce a particular theory, scientists are indulging in unethical behavior. Ethics in statistics are very important during data representation as well. Numbers don't lie but their interpretation and representation can be misleading.
What are the ethical issues in data science?
By obscuring data or taking only the data points that reinforce a particular theory, scientists are indulging in unethical behavior. Ethics in statistics are very important during data representation as well.
What are the ethical challenges of data visualization?
In the field of data visualization, there are many opportunities to manipulate viewers with untruthful representations of data; thus, like any other discipline, data visualization faces significant ethical challenges.
Why is statistical analysis unethical?
It also greatly depends on what kind of statistical analysis is being done. Unethical behavior might arise at any point - from data collection to data interpretation. For example, data collection can be made inherently biased by posing the wrong questions that stimulate strong emotions rather than objective realities.

What are ethical issues that we must consider when collecting data?
Teaching Support your professional development and learn new teaching skills and approaches....Want to keep learning?Where will the data be sourced?What methods of collecting data should be used?Is consent needed?Who will store, own and control the data?Are all your actions transparent and open to inspection?
What are some data ethical issues?
In particular, privacy rights, data validity, and algorithm fairness in the areas of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning are the most important ethical challenges in need of a more thorough investigation.
What are the ethics of data visualization?
Well-designed charts can be powerful tools of persuasion—but poorly designed charts can confuse, manipulate, and mislead. That's why it's important to teach students to be responsible purveyors of data.
What are the ethical concerns about doing statistical data analysis?
By obscuring data or taking only the data points that reinforce a particular theory, scientists are indulging in unethical behavior. Ethics in statistics are very important during data representation as well. Numbers don't lie but their interpretation and representation can be misleading.
What is the most serious ethical concerns related to data?
The three ethical concepts that might most likely be challenged by uses of Big Data are those previously mentioned—respecting participants' autonomy, achieving equity, and protecting privacy.
Why do we need to consider data ethics?
Why is Data Ethics Important? Data ethics is important because there must be a universal framework for what companies can and cannot do with the data they collect from people.
Why might someone intentionally use a graph to mislead?
Misleading graphs may be created intentionally to hinder the proper interpretation of data or accidentally due to unfamiliarity with graphing software, misinterpretation of data, or because data cannot be accurately conveyed. Misleading graphs are often used in false advertising.
How do you lie on a graph?
A classic way to lie with a chart is to introduce irrelevant information. In the chart on the right, the only relevant property is cone height. But, while the cone volume is irrelevant, it is also very difficult to ignore, encouraging us to assign a greater value to the larger part of the cone.
What is a complex ethical dilemma?
A problem in the decision-making process between two possible but unacceptable options from an ethical perspective.
What makes data unethical?
The first principle of data ethics is that an individual has ownership over their personal information. Just as it's considered stealing to take an item that doesn't belong to you, it's unlawful and unethical to collect someone's personal data without their consent.
What are the ethical principles in statistics?
PRINCIPLE A: Professional Integrity and Accountability Ethical statistical practice supports valid and prudent decision-making with appropriate methodology. The ethical statistical practitioner represents their capabilities and activities honestly and treats others with respect.
What is data ethics in statistics?
Data ethics is a branch of ethics that evaluates data practices—collecting, generating, analyzing and disseminating data, both structured and unstructured—that have the potential to adversely impact people and society.
What are the 3 ethical issues with privacy?
These ethical issues include, amongst others, the confidential treatment of personal information, the accuracy of this information, the purpose for which private information can be used and the possible gaining of access to an individual's personal and private information without the person being aware of it.
How is data used ethically?
Building a successful ethical data-use programAlign on company vision and beliefs. Organizations need a shared vision and mission for what their data program will look like, tailored to their industry context. ... Determine data ownership and risk mitigation. ... Evolve culture and talent. ... Set up a data-ethics board.
What ethical issues should be considered while collecting new data online?
Participant privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. Participant privacy, confidentiality and anonymity were the most commonly reported ethical concerns. These concerns are applicable to internet research across all disciplines, not just those involving families and children.
What is research ethics?
Research ethics: ethical issues of data reporting and the quest for authenticity. The search for truth and its unbiased reporting are ultimate goals of conducting scientific research. Ideally, the reporting of research data ought to be an objective task.
What is the ultimate goal of scientific research?
The search for truth and its unbiased reporting are ultimate goals of conducting scientific research. Ideally, the reporting of research data ought to be an objective task. In practice, however, it is fraught with numerous statistical and ethical pitfalls, seldom addressed in formal emergency medici ….
What is the American College of Emergency Physicians Code of Ethics?
To this end, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Code of Conduct and American College of Emergency Physicians Code of Ethics provide important guidance toward the accurate, compassionate, competent, impartial, and honest conduct of scientific research.
Is the reporting of research data objective?
Ideally, the reporting of research data ought to be an objective task. In practice, however, it is fraught with numerous statistical and ethical pitfalls, seldom addressed in formal emergency medicine training.
What is the purpose of chapter 5 ethics?
Chapter 5 Ethics. Chapter 5. Ethics. This chapter covers the ethical implication of data visualizations. Ethics refers to a set of moral principles that dictate a person’s behavior. While the field of ethics is often considered to be a theoretical discipline, ethical conduct is an important objective in practice.
What is the power of visualization?
This power of visualization connects to ethical duties and moral obligations to designers, builders, and researchers of visualizations. There exists a familiar feeling that data and data visualization, respectively, are apolitical or somehow ethically neutral and therefore leads to a lack of moral obligations with regards to how data are collected ...
Is visualization easy to understand?
This is more common in graphs that have time as one of their axes. Visualizations should be simple and easy to understand, but at the same time they should contain the essence of responsible visualization. To make final results pure, ethical procedures need to be practiced throughout all the steps of visualization.
Is visualization ethically neutral?
It is essential to understand that data and visualization are not ethically neutral. Data are not unbiased; they are always collected or processed by someone, for some aim. Often the work that goes into managing and structuring data is made invisible.
Why is there ethics in statistics?
Like any other field, there are ethics in statistics that need to be followed by a researcher so that only the truth is reported and there is no misrepresentation of the data. There are a number of possible ways in which unethical behavior can arise in statistics and researchers should steer clear of these.
Why is ethics important in statistics?
Ethics in statistics are important to give the right direction to research so that it is objective and reflects the truth.
How can data collection be biased?
For example, data collection can be made inherently biased by posing the wrong questions that stimulate strong emotions rather than objective realities. This happens all the time when the survey is aimed to try and prove a viewpoint rather than find out the truth.
Is it unethical to manipulate statistics?
There are a number of possible ways in which unethical behavior can arise in statistics and researchers should steer clear of these. It is relatively simple to manipulate and hide data, projecting only what one desires and not what the numbers actually speak, thus giving birth to the famous phrase "Lies, damned lies and statistics". However, this doesn't happen all the time and there is no reason not to believe in the conclusions of a statistical analysis.
HIPAA
Among other things, the concern over privacy has led to the development of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires certain entities engaging in the electronic transfer of personal health information to comply with minimum standards regarding the protection of such information so that it is safeguarded from unnecessary or careless disclosure or use.
Protecting the Data
Physically secure documents, CDs, computers, laptops, fax machines and other media so that sensitive information is not visible to those who don’t need to see it. Security breaches often occur unintentionally because employees forget to do the seemingly little things.
Axis and Scaling Manipulation
Axis and scaling manipulation occurs when the increments used on the y-axis exaggerate or minimize changes in the numerical values. Figures 5a and 5b show an example of what this may look like. Notice that both graphs represent the same data, but one graph appears to show small changes in housing prices and the other appears to show large changes.
Missing Information
Statistical graphs may also be misleading if they are missing important information. For example, Figure 6 is a graph reporting the total number of car accidents from 2006 in two different states.
Sizing
The size of the intervals on the axes is another important piece of information when interpreting a graph. If they are not equal, the graph can be misleading. For example, look at Figure 7 and notice the increments on the x-axis.
What is the most common form of misleading graphs?
1. Manipulating the Y-axis. Arguably, the most common form of misleading graphs is one that has its Y-axis manipulated. When comparing large numbers with each other many try to exclude zero from the Y-axis in order to better show the differences between instances.
How to make a misleading chart?
One of the most troubling methods for creating misleading charts is cherry picking. Cherry picking is the act of selectively picking out the evidence that supports your point of view while disregarding data that does not. When you expect certain things from the data it is surprisingly easy to fall into this trap.
What happens if you scale a pictogram uniformly?
If you were to scale them uniformly it creates a perceptually misleading comparison. Typically, people tend to interpret the area of the pictogram and not only their height.
Why include zero in Y axes?
Including zero into both Y-axes is a quick fix that can prevent graphs from being misleading. However, you still might stumble upon a spurious correlation if your lines happen to overlap without any provable causal relationship.
How many years did the graph cherry pick?
The graph cherry picked the 15 years that validate their claims while ignoring anything that happened up to that point.
How to show data without the difficulties of reading the Y axis?
There are two solutions to this problem. First, simply include the zero value into your graph. It will show the data as is without the difficulties of reading the Y-axis. Second, there may be times when adding zero is actually quite misleading.
Why do you add a zero break in a graph?
In that case, I would advise you to add a zero-break to communicate that you have removed zero from the graph. Being transparent in your data visualization is exceedingly important.
What are ethical considerations when using visuals in workplace communication?
There are important ethical considerations when using visuals in workplace communication. This lesson covers specific guidelines that individuals can follow to ensure that the visual message is an appropriate representation of the truth. Create an account.
When do you not imply a cause-effect relationship?
Do not imply a cause-effect relationship when there is not causal, statistically significant evidence to support your claim.
Why do we review visuals?
Review your visuals to look for potential misinterpretation or miscommunication of a company's information based on your visual element.
Why is it important to use accurate visuals?
The use of accurate visuals is a necessity to produce a true and ethical reflection of a product or idea. Graphs can sometimes only show a certain time frame of information, and photos can limit the overall three dimensions of a product. For example, the photo of the new Thought Genius with its silver/black color scheme made it seem very heavy to wear. The team had to create a small video to further show kids wearing the product and also add a detail of the weight of the Genius (it only weights 8 oz.).
Why do companies use photos?
Many companies like to use photos as a tool for emotional manipulation for their customers. A pet company might show a skinny, unhealthy dog that does not eat their product. A toy company might show a sad child who doesn't own their toy. It is important for businesses to not use visual communication to conduct emotional manipulation. Pear Products has made sure that their photos are fair representations of the actual use of the product. It helps that the ability to read someone's mind does cause excitement in their consumers.
Is visual communication unethical?
Visual communication should also not overestimate results. If a consumer survey results in 50% of consumers would purchase the product, it would be unethical to post that everyone surveyed loved the product. Pear Products had to reveal that initial test market information showed that the product wasn't as well-received due to problems with the Thought Genius' wearable head attachment. It had only a 58% favorable rating among testers who tried to wear the product.
Is it ethical to hide negative reviews?
An ethical consideration when communicating business information is to not downplay or ignore negative data. If you have over 500 good reviews and 300 negative reviews of a product, it is not ethical to only feature the positive reviews in your report to your boss. Hiding product information can hinder sales or even cause legal issues in the future. It is best to address negatives with direct feedback and try and make improvements to solve any problems.
Why do federal websites need to maintain high standards of privacy?
Federal websites need to maintain high standards of privacy considering that they store such large amounts of critical information. ✦ The degree of access the government has to citizens’ personal records raises ethical issues in information privacy.
What does it mean when all the information you access is gathered from multiple sources?
If all the information accessed or shared over the Internet by a user is gathered from multiple sources (like his social networking profile, browsing habits, money transactions, etc.) and compiled, it can give you an almost complete picture of the kind of person he is.
Why is technology important?
Technology makes it possible to view all the information that is being exchanged over the web. It is of help against threats to web security and in protecting users from security breaches. But the same can be used to disclose confidential information for the wrong reasons, thus invading user privacy on the Internet.
Do advertisers track your online activity?
Advertisers track your web activities and intrude on your privacy. Your online transactions, emails, and social networking profiles are scanned, thus invading your online privacy. There could be valid reasons for this. But is this ethical? The Internet privacy needs of users should be catered to.
Is it legal to let users know of a data breach?
Even after the organization knows of a data security breach, there is no legal binding on them to let the users know of the same. It would be ethical on their part to notify the users of the breach as soon as they know of it. ✦ The other important ethical issue in Internet privacy is whether the websites that gather personally identifiable ...
Can email service providers use your information?
However, for technical and ethical reasons, email service providers do not use your information in a way that can harm you. ✦ There are ethical issues over whether third parties should be allowed to store or read emails without the users’ consent. ✦ Google scans your emails with the help of automated systems.
When shopping online, do you share your credit card number?
✦ When shopping online, you share your credit card number or bank account details on the shopping portal. There is a potential of these details being used unethically or for fraudulent purposes.
