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"Graduate Education in Research Ethics for Sciencists and Engineers" is a project funded by the National Science Foundation (SES 0629377) to design and integrate a pilot program in research ethics for graduate students in science and engineering to prepare them to face the complex and encompassing ethical and social issues that arise in professional activity. This project is being built around three key components: (1) Three specially designed graduate student workshops, a freestanding course, and a capstone activity will provide students with problem-solving skills and a conceptual framework in research ethics; (2) Participants in faculty development workshops will design research ethics cases and materials to provide graduate students with practice and guidance in confronting ethical challenges in research; (3) Faculty mentoring workshops will foster collaboration between faculty experienced with integrating ethidcs and those new to the task. This and others in a series of modules in Connexions will describe these activities and undergo modifications and improvements as these activities evolve and are tried out at different locations. The conversion of this workshop activity into module form has come about through the EAC Toolkit project, NSF SES 0551779.

Module introduction

The capstone event in this series of graduate student activities is a Graduate Student Research Ethics Banquet. To prepare for this activity, interdisciplinary student groups organized in the Case Analysis Workshop will prepare poster presentations which will outline their solutions to the case or cases presented during the earlier workshop. Students from the research ethics course will also be invited to develop interdisciplinary gorups and submit posters. The posters will receive campus-wide publicity and will be displayed for a week at UPRM's Center for Ethics in the Professions, where students and faculty will carry out a preliminary evaluation. Then an evening banquet will be held where the groups will present their case resolutions to an interdisciplinary audience of faculty mentors and other graduate students. The student groups will justify their solutions and respond to questions and comments from participants. Upon completing this series of activities (three workshops plus the banquet) graduate students will receive a certificate from UPRM's Center for Professional Enhancement acknowledging their work in research ethics. The banquet's objectives and activities are presented in the table below.

Graduate research ethics banquet
Objectives Activities
Students practice skill objectives of ethical awareness, ethical evaluation, and ethical integration in the context of preparing a poster presentation Poster Preparation: Students prepare a poster presentation on their analysis and resolution of the case presented in the Case Analysis Workshop
Poster presentation display helps to disseminate efforts in integrating ethics into graduate research in science and engineering. Interaction with undergraduate students also helps to establish mentoring relationships. Poster Presentation Displays: Students will present their posters and solutions to ethics cases before peers and faculty mentors. They will respond to comments and questions.
Graduate students receive reaction, feedback, and coaching from their faculty mentors and peers Graduate Research Ethics Banquet: Students will present their posters and solutions to ethics cases before peers and faculty mentors. They will respond to comments and questions.
Students receive formal recognition of their efforts in research ethics Graduate Ethics Certificate: Upon completion of the workshop series and banquet, students will be given a certificate in research ethics

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Source:  OpenStax, Graduate education in research ethics for scientists and engineers. OpenStax CNX. Dec 14, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10408/1.3
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