It's over here, but starting elsewhere...

This blog is kaput here. RIP. Contact Gary Comstock at NCSU for updated information about blogging on research ethics.

Yard Sale: Moving Soon!

Very soon, discussion of research ethics on this blog will be moving to a new site and this blog will cease operation. Stay tuned for the new URL, and send me your ideas about topics and postings!

Just take the course...15 minutes to ethical fitness!

A column in a local paper chides UC Berkeley professors for not taking a required online ethics course. Hey, after all, the column claims you can finish it in 15-30 minutes, thereby revving up your "ethical synapses"!

Hat tip to Margaret Soltan at University Diaries.

A Ward of Research Misconduct

CU Boulder seeks to fire ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill on charges of research misconduct, while Churchill accuses his accusers of the same. Stay tuned, research ethics fans! More here.

Update, 5/30: See the IHE column about the case, especially the comments. That is, if you haven't had it up to HERE with WC!

Teaching Research Ethics workshop

Indiana Memorial Union

I am at the end of a 2.5 day workshop on teaching research ethics, held at the Indiana Memorial Union on the IU Bloomington campus. Very productive time, though my butt is aching (bring a cushion if they don't change the PPT-laden pedagogy in future years, I say). Excellent group of presenters, and participants a mix of faculty and IRB/research compliance administrators from universities around the nation. I came here principally to enlarge and refresh my teaching toolkit, and the sheer amount of material provided is very helpful.

Much of the discussion focused upon the biological and medical sciences, and IRBs. I had done a stint on my university's IRB years ago, so this was a good refresher for me. I am as interested, though, in the wider issues to do with ethics in an institutional setting, and the societal factors that lead to concerns about research ethics.

PS: If you haven't been to IU Bloomington, do go, it is as lovely a place as the picture above.

Update on Research Ethics from Purdue

Hovde Hall, Purdue University

From Inside Higher Education:
"Purdue University announced Thursday that — in part because of a request from a Congressional leader — the institution was continuing its investigation into concerns about the research on “bubble fusion” conducted by Rusi P. Taleyarkhan, one of its professors. The findings have been questioned by others, but an earlier Purdue probe found no misconduct. Thursday’s announcement stated that the university actually started an investigation into new allegations shortly after a faculty panel in February concluded that there was no evidence of misconduct. Based on conversations with Rep. Brad Miller, chair of the House Committee on Science and Technology’s investigations subcommittee, Purdue will now take additional steps, such as adding one or more outside scientists to the review."

In part this case is responsible for even keener interest in research ethics for budding scientists here at Purdue. It will provide some interesting material for discussion of research ethics.

TRE at IU Bloomington

I am about to attend the Teaching Research Ethics workshop at the Poynter Center at IU Bloomington May 15-18. I would be interested to hear from any others who have attended this program, especially on any tips to make it as valuable as possible.

Reflections on Raleigh

LANGURE senior fellows Alan Beck and A. G. Rud bang the big drum

It has been about two weeks since I attended the LANGURE seminar in Raleigh. Some thoughts.

• I was impressed by how participants saw research ethics as encompassing larger issues of institutional and societal context. Certainly bread-and-butter research ethics topics such as plagiarism and human subjects are vital, but we need to keep in mind the context in which we do our research.
  
• I am still unclear, but maybe it is just me, on how a land grant institution's focus on research ethics is different from other types of institutions. Clearly at the meeting discussion of ethics in agriculture, veterinary sciences, and so forth is tied to land grant institutions (though not exclusively of course). Would others venture some ideas on how we can sharpen the identity of land grant research ethics?


• Somewhat to that end, the module of which I was part was on extension and expert advice. From an initial example of Florida citrus canker, we broadened the scope to include larger contextual issues.

LANGURE Fellows in the News

Please post news about LANGURE Sr. and Jr. Fellows here. For example, I see that Sue Ravenscroft has just been given a named chair at Iowa State. Congrats, Sue!

Ravenscroft to become Roger P. Murphy Professor of Accounting
http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/2006/oct/murphyprof.shtml

Gary

Vegetarian Meal Plan

"A professor at a major state university has received federal funding for a program on ethics which life sciences professors from around the country will attend. The professor is a vegetarian on moral grounds. In making arrangements for the five-day program, he specifies that all of the (optional) lunches will be lacto-ovo vegetarian. Several of the participants are outraged. In fact, one sends a long, angry email message to professors across the country and to highly placed personnel in federal funding organizations, including the National Science Foundation, which funded the program." - Gary Varner, Ag Bioethics Forum 6 (1996) http://www.bioethics.iastate.edu/forum/nov.96pg5.html

What do you think of the vegetarian professor's action?

LANGURE: Evaluations welcome!

What do you think of LANGURE? Any content we should add, delete, or revise? What about the design? Could you find what you were looking for? Suggestions for a more user-friendly site?

Eric Adles is in the process of re-designing the site, btw. By March 1st, 07, we intend to have the new site open for business. (For the very curious, you can see Eric's work so far at OpenSeminar.org/ethics.)

How much ethical theory?

How much time should a course on Research Ethics devote to ethical principles and methods of decision-making?

I'm midway through my 1.0 credit research ethics course with 28 NC State doctoral students. At the end of our last class, I asked for feedback on the course. One of the better students efficiently summarized a criticism we've struggled with as a LANGURE team.

My suggestion would be to not use so much class time on the theories but on applied material. If you could use theories and apply them to how we can solve ethical problems, then fine. But even then, I’m not as interested in theory beyond broadening my horizons as much as I am interesting in knowing some of the rules and regulations that I will need to have an understanding of when I do my research. I also want to know what events and policies things I may encounter and ways of solving those problems.

For a discussion of the approach LANGURE is currently taking, click here:
http://www.chass.ncsu.edu/langure/howmuchtheory.htm

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A. G. Rud said...

I like the approach of engaging sympathies by using "heels." One way to react to heels is with revulsion and an avowed decision to never do that oneself. But the heels of history, such as the Nazi or Tuskegee doctors, may be too removed from some of the more ordinary, garden-variety lapses in research ethics. How do you make the bridge between extreme historical cases and everyday practice?

9:09 PM

NCSU Ethics said...

Good question, AG. The Nazi experiments did not happen within my lifetime, not to mention the lifetimes of my students. Furthermore, those experiments were so vile and egregious as to seem to belong to a subject different from "research misconduct."
The Tuskegee case is within my lifetime, and students, particularly those from the U.s., seem to connect with it more directly than with the Third Reich example.

You asked, perceptively: How do we make the connection from these cases to the more common and mundane forms of misconduct? The heels play that role well. Heels commonly are guilty of F,F, or P, the most common forms of misconduct these days. By assembling a roster of examples from as many disciplines as possible, and preferably one from every discipline, the student will see that irresponsible and risky behaviors are not an artifact of a long-past era. Nor are they the sole province of people from other disciplines. They are recent, and they are present in my field.

What do you think?
G. Comstock

9:37 PM

gmbodner said...

I used the material you posted on the web as the basis for a two-hour introduction to ethics for our first-year graduate students in chemistry (about 65 students) at the beginning of the semester. The most useful part, in their minds, was the plagiarism exercise. The least useful, in their minds, was the introduction to the research mission of the land-grant university and some of the more theoretical issues of ethics. They also wanted more applications.

11:11 AM

A. G. Rud said...

The roster of examples works for me, let many flowers bloom to give people as many "hooks" on heeldom.

5:16 PM

Women & underrepresented minorities in grad education

How should we address the opportunities and challenges for women and underrepresented minorities pursuing graduate degrees? In an era when some argue in court that Affirmative Action policies are not fair or no longer needed, should a research ethics course continue to address this topic?

Use of animals in research

A discussion of the use of animals in research.

Lecture 3, multiple choice questions

Post here multiple choice questions over Lecture 3, "Four ethical principles."

Discussion board

Open discussion of any and all topics in research ethics.

Ethical Theory and Research Ethics

Of what practical use are theoretical considerations in research ethics?

I posed this question to students in research ethics and asked them to explain how different ethical theories might (a) justify one rule from their professional code and/or (b) draw our attention to different considerations bearing on the rule.

Here, with the students' permissions, are four responses.

Ethics Issues in the Practice of Physics: Seminar Responses

We welcome your feedback from the seminar "Ethics Issues in the Practice of Physics" that was held on Monday, April 17th at 4:00.