Education resources for guiding discussions on ethics in science

Abstract

Faculty, staff, and students at all levels of educational institutions are becoming more aware about ethical issues in the classroom and in research. As educators, it is our responsibility to provide an opportunity to discuss these issues so that future scientists will be prepared to face the many ethical challenges they may encounter. Often, unfortunately, we are reticent to engage in this discussion due solely to the lack of our own repertoire of resources regarding ethics. Thus, this summary of educational resources was compiled to promote ethics discussions in science classrooms and research programs.Keywords: Ethics education, research ethics, mentoring, plagiarism.Nationally, faculty, staff, and students at all levels of educational institutions are becoming more aware about ethical issues, particularly in the conductance of research. This awareness comes in part because various federal regulations require the observance of certain ethical standards in the conduct of research, as well as continuing education regarding responsible research practices. These regulations are implemented by a number of federal agencies, including the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) within the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). To ensure compliance with these regulations, academic institutions have institutional review boards that review and approve research that involves humans or animals. In addition, some of these federal funding agencies such as NSF and NIH are also now requiring evidence of "ethics training" for researchers as a condition for receiving funding from them. Clearly, this is the right move, and it makes sense that individuals involved in research should have some form of ethics training.Unfortunately, however, although federal regulations form the basis for an understanding of ethically responsible research, ethics in science should not be thought of primarily in terms of regulations and research misconduct. Regulations are restricted to what is strictly enforceable and, in this respect, focus on the avoidance or prevention of obvious wrongdoing. Although it is tempting to do so because it is easier to buy predeveloped modules that concentrate only on compliance and regulations, this approach does not address larger issues or build true understanding of the ethical issues faced by scientists today. Instead, an approach of using best practices that cover a wide array of topics should be used. This requires that faculty, staff, and students understand and reflect on the underlying principles that form the basis of ethical practice; also, they need to be able to apply this understanding and reflection concretely in the context of their interactions, classroom activities, and research. Discussion on general research topics such as plagiarism and mentorship as well as research ethics needs to be brought into the classroom and laboratory for students at all levels. Unfortunately, these topics all too often get side-stepped, n...

Innovation in the Biochemistry/Molecular biology laboratory

“…BAMBEd has recently published laboratory activities that contain ethics components , some of these in the context of personalized medicine or biotechnology . Other publications, including books and websites reviewed in this journal and elsewhere focus heavily on teaching ethics as a philosophical issue to be presented to students in a didactic setting and typically as a separate course.…”

“… can lead students to think of ethics separately from their research, whereas inclusion of ethics in the laboratory setting encourages students to see that their laboratory work has an ethical component. Arkwright‐Keeler and Stapleton have collated many resources to assist faculty in designing modules or stand‐alone courses . An interesting direction taken by some institutions is to include ethics in courses that prepare students for the transition to graduate school .…”