Workshop Title: Ethical guidelines for NIME research

WS Schedule

Pre-workshop

• Share on Social Media!

• Collect information about number of participants

• Get in touch with participants and share topics and question on their approach to research ethics (see comment below)

Workshop

Introduction

• Team introduction (2 min)

• F: Why/how was the Ethics Committee formed (5 min)

• C/R: Why did you decide to participate? (3 min)

• Participants introduction (10-15 min)

  • Names, background, affiliation, etc

  • What is their approach to research ethics?

• N: Introduce the code (5 min)

Survey

• F: Present slides with the quantitative results from the study (5 min)

• R: Presents the main topics that emerged from the qualitative date with quote (5 min)

• Q&A

• Pause Cafe

Breakout rooms

This part will depend on the number of participants, but the idea is to have 2 parallel rooms, each discussing one or two questions at time and then reconvening to discuss with the rest of the participants (30 min)

Open mic

15-30 minutes of open mic

Closing remarks

• Going forward (Slack channel, call for volunteering)

Description

The NIME Ethics Committee has recently developed a first version of the NIME Principles & Code of Practice on Ethical Research. The document was developed to formalise the ethical values and standards in research and artistic practice in our community. The ultimate goal is to support authors in addressing these values when planning, running, and submitting a research project or a musical work to the NIME conference. We have highlighted the living nature of the document: rather than being a set of immutable guidelines imposed by a small group of community members, the document is designed to be community-owned and participated effort to reflect on NIME values and practices as they evolve over time.

We have already achieved some actionable results, in particular the inclusion within the manuscript template of a paragraph inviting authors to reflect on the ethical issues connected with their research project.

Central to developing ethics in NIME is its community. This workshop aims to give every member the possibility to share their views in order to collectively contribute to the shaping of NIME principles and code of practice, whilst reflecting the current and deep sense of ethics and principles at NIME.

The workshop will be structured in three parts: (1) pre-workshop survey, (2) workshop and open discussion, (3) post-workshop activities.

1. Pre-workshop Survey

   Two weeks before the workshop we will circulate a survey in the NIME forum and mailing-list to collect feedback and thoughts on the current document. The Ethics Committee will collate and analyse the answers.

2. Workshop

   The workshop itself will last 2 hours and will be structured as follows:

   1. The organisers introduce the NIME Principles and Code of Practice on Ethical Research (10 minutes);

   2. The organisers present the results from the survey (20 minutes);

   3. The organisers propose a number of topics/questions for discussions (30 minutes) in the breakout rooms, that includes ethics and envision, ethics and application, ethics and rejections, such as:

      • What support would you seek from the NIME Ethics Committee, if any? What support do you think the NIME Ethics Committee could offer?

      • What would you add to the existing Code of Practice (participation, originality, equalities, environment, privacy) ?

      • Should a failure to adhere to the Code of Practice result in a rejection?

      • What strategy should be in place to propose amendments to the code?

      Workshop participants will be assigned to different breakout rooms chaired by different members of the NIME community and documented with a live document.

   4. All participants are be back in the main virtual room. The main discussion points from the various breakout rooms are shared with the rest of the participants (30 minutes);

   5. Open mic: every participant is free to raise any additional issue (30 minutes).

   6. Final discussions on way forward.

3. Post-workshop activities

   During the workshop, the presentations (points 1 and 2 above) will be recorded but not the rest of the workshop to keep the discussion freer. However, a live document will be open during this stage to capture the discussions. The document will remain active for 1 month after the workshop to give all NIME members an opportunity to further voice their opinions.

Short Description

The NIME Principles & Code of Practice on Ethical Research has been developed to reflect the community’s highest ethical standards in research and artistic practice. The document has been written by several members of the NIME community that volunteer undertaking this job. Now, we are looking to open a dialogue with the rest of the community, which is the objective of the workshop.

Organizers

• Fabio Morreale is a Lecturer at the School of Music of the University of Auckland (New Zealand). He teaches Computer Music, Composition, and Digital Musical Instrument Design at undergraduate and postgraduate level. He has a PhD in Computer Science (University of Trento, Italy) and a MSc and BSc in Computer Science (University of Verona, Italy). He also worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Augmented Instruments Laboratory at Queen Mary University of London and at the Interaction Lab of the University of Trento. His research is centered on the design of new technologies for music performance and on the politics of music technology.

• Nicolas Gold is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. He holds BSc and PhD degrees in Computer Science (University of Durham, UK) and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. He has previously taught computer music at undergraduate and postgraduate level and currently teaches software engineering professional practice and ethics. His current research activities span software engineering, computer music (especially in healthcare and education settings), and ethical issues associated with these topics. He is a departmental ethics advisor/reviewer and regularly sits on the main UCL Research Ethics Committee. He has written guidance for UCL staff on ethics and legal issues in technology-related research, and has contributed content on ethics to the ACM Paper and Peer Review Quality Task Force Empirical Standards for Software Engineering Research.

• Cécile Chevalier is a lecturer at the Media, Arts & Humanities School, of the University of Sussex, UK. She creates and works with art installations & new instruments to investigates digital culture, bodies and networked technology, their expression, oppression, and omission. Drawing from an interdisciplinary practice between systems art and technology, play theory, and feminism & intersections and technology. Cécile is co-founder of the Feminist Approaches to Computational Technology Network (fact.network), also co-funder of Intersections, Feminism, Technology & Digital Humanities network (ifte.network, UKRI/IRC funded), and Member of the Sussex Humanities Lab (SHL) and Experimental Music Technologies Lab (EMuTe Lab).

• Raul Masu  is a Ph.D. student in Digital Media at FCT/NOVA University of Lisbon, and ITI/LARSyS. After his graduation in Electronic Music and Composition from the Conservatory of Trento, Raul has worked at the Interaction Lab (University of Trento), and collaborated as musician/researcher with the Moving Digits project (co-funded by the Creative-Europe program). Since 2020, Raul is one of the NIME environmental officers, and member of the NIME ethical committee.

Preferred length of workshop

See details above.

Technical and Space Requirements

Nothing specific.

Links to Supporting Media (optional)

NIME Principles & Code of Practice on Ethical Research: https://www.nime.org/ethics/