First 5-yearly Revision of the ASA Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice

• Activity Number: 431 - ASA Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice: Revision, Relevance, Inreach, and Outreach
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 12, 2021 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Committee on Professional Ethics
• Author(s): Rochelle E Tractenberg* and Michael B Hawes* and Howard Hogan* and Megan Price * and Harold E Gomes* and James Cochran*
• Companies: Georgetown University and Senior Advisor for Data Access and Privacy, US Census Bureau and (US Census) Retired and Human Rights Data Analysis Group; Chair, Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights and and University of Alabama
• Keywords: ethical practice; ethical statistics; ASA Ethical Guidelines; statistics and data science; teaching professional ethics; ethical data science

Abstract

The American Statistical Association first established the Committee on Professional Ethics (COPE) in 1994, with the mission of “maintaining and disseminating the ASA Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice”. The first set of Guidelines was published in 1995, but the first revision was not initiated until 2014. This revision was completed in 2016, and in their approval of the revisions, the ASA Board of Directors instituted a new requirement that the Guidelines should be reviewed and, if necessary, revised, every five years. A COPE Working Group completed the first (ever) revision 2014-2016, and a second Working Group was established to respond to a Board request for a specific review/revision in 2018 to ensure the Guidelines were sufficiently clearly prohibitive about sexual harassment, bullying, and other forms of intimidation. In 2018, in preparation for the 2021 Guidelines Revision effort, an online comment collection system was created by the COPE and deployed to encourage ASA Members to contribute their ideas for revising specific Guideline Principles and elements. In 2020, a protocol was crafted based on the experiences of the previous two revision efforts, to ensure that the 2021 and future Guideline revision efforts would be based on this specific input, would equitably distribute the burden of revision across the Working Group, and would allow the revision project to be completed by the COPE Working Group within the calendar year. The 2021 revision effort was the first time the revision protocol was shared explicitly with the Working Group, and four COPE members volunteered for the effort. The Working Group was co-chaired by the COPE Chair (JC) and the Chair of the previous revisions Working Groups, a Friend of the COPE (RET, no longer a member). Meeting weekly (in addition to monthly COPE meetings) starting the first week of January 2021, the Working Group members synthesized the input from the online collection system and revised every aspect of the 2018 Guidelines. This paper outlines the core changes that were made and highlights both the rationales for key changes, and also what changed. The revised Guidelines will be reviewed by the ASA Board mid-November 2021, for approval and dissemination for the 2022-2026 cycle.