Reporting Ethics Considerations in Software Engineering Publications

Ethical guidelines of software engineering journals require authors to provide statements related to the conflict of interest and the process of obtaining consent (if human subjects are involved). The objective of this study is to review the reporting of the ethical considerations in Empirical Software Engineering - An International Journal. The results indicate that two out of seven studies reported some ethical information however, not explicitly. The ethical discussions were focussed on anonymity and confidentiality. Ethical aspects such as competence, comprehensibility and vulnerability of the subjects were not discussed in any of the papers reviewed in this study. It is important to not only state that consent was obtained however, the procedure of obtaining consent should be reported to improve the accountability and trust.