Summary

The Basic Health & Human Services (HHS) Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects is known as the 'Common Rule' because it applies to a large number of government departments. It is based largely on the Belmont Report (above). It defines institutional review boards (IRBs), requirements for informed consent, and additional protections for women, fetuses, neonates, children and prisoners.
It also lists a range of research that is exempt from the policy. This includes "research, conducted in established or commonly accepted educational settings" including normal educational practices so long as the research doesn't harm a student's ability to learn. "This includes most research on regular and special education instructional strategies" and research on "instructional techniques, curricula, or classroom management methods" and also "research that only includes interactions involving educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behavior." (HHS, 2018:\xA746.104.d.1-2) The research is exempt if it is a "benign behavioral exemption", that is, it is "brief in duration, harmless, painless, not physically invasive, not likely to have a significant adverse lasting impact on the subjects, and the investigator has no reason to think the subjects will find the interventions offensive or embarrassing." (Ibid:\xA746.104.2.C.ii)
As such, the Common Rule is focused more specifically on biomedical research, and it has to be asked, is biomedicine the ethical baseline? "Not all research has the same risks and norms as biomedicine\x85 there has remained a low-simmering conflict between social scientists and IRBs. This sets the stage for debates over regulating research involving big data." (Metcalfe, 2016)
Behavior Analyst Certification Board - Professional and ethical compliance code for behavior analysts
A set of statements describing "responsible" research is stipulated in the wider professional code described above for behavior analysts (BACB,2014:9.0). These statements prioritize the scientific competence of the researcher, the need for an ethics review board, the welfare and dignity of research subjects, informed consent, and confidentiality. A number of statements focus on research integrity, including statements referencing intellectual property and plagiarism, appropriate recognition of prior work and contributions. Researchers must not fabricate data or falsify results in their publications, must correct errors in their publications, and not omit findings that might alter interpretations of their work.

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