Publisher's Note: Wang, C., Zhang, Q., Liu, W., Liu, Y. & Miao, L. Facial feature discovery for ethnicity recognition. WIREs Data Mining Knowl. Discov. 9, e1278 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.1278

Abstract

WIREs Data Mining and Knowledge DiscoveryVolume 10, Issue 5 e1370 Publisher's NoteFree Access Publisher's Note: Wang, C., Zhang, Q., Liu, W., Liu, Y. & Miao, L. Facial feature discovery for ethnicity recognition. WIREs Data Mining Knowl. Discov. 9, e1278 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.1278 This article corrects the following: Expression of Concern: Facial feature discovery for ethnicity recognition Cunrui Wang, Qingling Zhang, Wanquan Liu, Yu Liu, Lixin Miao, Volume 9Issue 1Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery First Published online: August 2, 2018 First published: 28 April 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.1370 [Correction added on 28 May 2020 after first online publication: The first and last paragraphs of this note were edited to better reflect the concerns that were raised.] AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Wiley received notification of concern about whether the ethical requirements for human subject research were met in a study by Wang, C. and colleagues that was published in WIREs Data Mining Knowledge Discovery (Wang et al., 2019) on August 2, 2018. Study participants are reported to be from ethnic or religious minority groups, with some considered part of a vulnerable population. Wiley and the WIREs editorial team launched an investigation in response to these concerns to check compliance with acceptable standards for ethics approval and consent; the investigation concluded with the decision to retain the article in the publication record. The investigation established that: All research participants were students at Dalian Minzu University and volunteered to participate. The authors provided multiple signed consent forms with signatures sufficiently distinct upon our inspection. Each consent form permits use of the participant's photo for commercial and non-commercial purposes as part of the study and use in any resulting publications. The authors verified that each participant was verbally informed of the study's aim prior to signing the consent form. The authors, during their research, gathered two data points from each participant: ethnicity and a photo, and removed all other personally identifiable information. The data used in the article was collected in 2014, at which time there was no national guidance with a cohesive set of ethical criteria related to computational or social science research. In carrying out their research, the authors first collected the data then sought university ethics approval to use the data in their research. They received approval to carry out their research on the data roughly six months after applying. The authors sought, and received, approval from their university's research ethics review committee to reuse the data each year since the initial submission in 2014. They provided the university approval forms from 2017 and 2018, which were the most recent approvals they had received prior to submitting their article to the Journal in 2018. The authors maintain that they pursued ethical approval for their research that was consistent with university, local, and national requirements at the time (2014). Based on the Journal's assessment of the evidence collected during the investigation, research participants were volunteers, were made aware of the study's intent, and provided appropriate license for data to be used in the research and, eventually, publication. Wiley and the Journal editors recognize that the authors provided definitions of ethnicity, race, and nationality within the article that do not conform to current anthropological and sociological standards. The authors’ limited understanding of these perspectives has contributed to a racialist tone throughout the article. Wiley and the Journal editors do not endorse these perspectives, but we understand that these authors are not anthropologists and that these concepts might be understood differently in different parts of the world. Our investigation concludes that the research reported by Wang and colleagues does appear to be in compliance with acceptable standards for conducting human subject research and that the authors followed the basic local and international standards for obtaining consent that could reasonably be expected at the time they conducted the research. REFERENCE Wang, C., Zhang, Q., Liu, W., Liu, Y., & Miao, L. (2019). Facial feature discovery for ethnicity recognition. WIREs Data Mining Knowl. Discov., 9, e1278. https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.1278 Volume10, Issue5September/October 2020e1370 ReferencesRelatedInformation