Transcript Teaching ethics to undergraduates

Teaching Research Ethics
UREC workshop
22 February 2010
What is the University of Sheffield’s
approach to
research ethics and integrity?
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Devolution of responsibility
Based on trusting colleagues
Based on the belief that disciplines and funding
units know their own fields and professional
peers best
Based on policy dissemination and staff
development
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Devolution of responsibility is organisationally more
demanding, rather than less demanding
Based in the belief that if colleagues cannot be
trusted to self-regulate, top-down regulation is
unlikely to be more effective
Aims to involve the widest possible spectrum of
staff in the ethics approval process
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Devolution of responsibility also involves
students
Students are responsible, too
Students must know about research ethics
Research ethics should be incorporated across
the curriculum
Students must be involved in discussions about
the ethics of their research projects
Behaving ethically in our research activities is not
just a matter of safeguarding research subjects
It is also a matter of safeguarding the
reputations of ourselves, the University and the
academic project
Research integrity
This is a broader field than research ethics
Applies to all kinds of research, not just to research
with human participants
Involves relationships with colleagues, students
and the general public, as well as
direct research subjects
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Transparency and openness
Honesty and plagiarism
Authorship and collaboration
Communication strategies
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Teaching research ethics and integrity
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Accepting responsibility for our individual practice as
researchers…and owning up
Concrete cases and examples, rather than fine
general principles
Hard cases may make bad law…but they may
make great teaching material
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Learning by doing…this is one of the points of
student research projects
Encourage students to be as comfortable as
possible with the reality that there will sometimes
be grey areas, and that a rule-governed ‘recipe’
approach is unlikely to be sufficiently responsive to
the demands of the real world
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Integrity applies to scholarship in general,
not just to empirical research
The Sheffield Graduate…
…and the Sheffield Academic
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