Research Ethics and Research Integrity

Timetable

Thursdays 16:45 (4:45 p.m.) room 215, Building 89C, 2nd Floor (Dept. of Philosophy), Campus Ogrody, Poznań

Module aim (aims)

Students shall be introduced research freedom, research integrity, elements of publication ethics (including authorship, AI contribution, paper mills); Students develop a research-related ethical competence, e.g., providing a research statement and an ethical self-assessment (statement) in all types of research area and projects, applying for an approval of a relevant Ethics Committee.  

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Students shall be able to edit a training research project acording to their interest as for ex. bachelor thesis including an interview with human participants (lengtg: approximately 4 pages; this task takes ca. 25 hours = 1 ECTS) according to guidelines provided by the Teacher; deadline for submission of the training project: 5th week (first deadline) or 6th week (second deadline). Edition of an individual ethical statement referring exactly to that project follows due to 10th week (first deadline) or 11th week (second deadline) (this task takes ca. 25 hours = 1 ECTS); reading materials and documents in English (this task takes ca. 25 hours = 1 ECTS); preparation for final presentation and discussion (this task takes ca. 25 hours = 1 ECTS). 

Syllabus

Week 1: Research freedom; challenges and regulations now and then  

Week 2: The history of science (across disciplines, colonialism, etc.) in terms of malpractices 

Week 3: Case-based learning 

Week 4: What are our disciplines? Pre-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, post-disciplinarity; specialization and departementalisation of knowledge and research

Week 5: Prepare an individual ‘training’ research project (instruction and construction; methodological statement) 

Week 6: International ethical regulations & good practices for those conducting research with human participants (biomedical and non-biomedical), on human remains, on artifacts, in multinormative contexts, e.g., postcolonial, indinenous, sacral, politically demanding; on natural environment, etc. (research integrity I) 

Week 7: National guidelines and normative pluralism (each Student is kindly asked to prepare 1/2 page of information about the Ethics Committee and ethical guidelines from their home university sites and bring it to class on this day) (research integrity II)

Week 8: Discussing training research projects submitted by Students to identify ethical issues 

Week 9: 'Tailoring' ethical statement suitable for each individual project (instruction)

Week 10: Data categories, access, protection & data statement 

Week 11: Research on social media 

Week 12: Applying for an approval (step by step) of a relevant Ethics Committee/Ethical Board

Week 13: Authorship, plagiarism, AI contribution, paper mills 

Week 14: Glossary of research ethics; Q & A 

Week 15: Mini-conference for the whole group (self-presentation by each participant about their training project, ethical statement, further prospects, etc.; discussion)  

Reading list

Nowak Ewa, Mazur Paweł, "Research Freedom and Access to Knowledge..." (2024); Iphofen Ron (ed.), Finding Common Ground: Consensus in Research Ethics Across the Social Sciences, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017; Emmerich Nathan (ed.), Virtue Ethics in the Conduct and Governance of Social Science Research, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018; Dodd Savannah (ed.), Ethics and Integrity in Visual Research Methods, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017; Woolfield Kandy (ed.), The Ethics of Online Research, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017; George Lili, Tauri Julian (ed.), Indigenous Research Ethics: Claiming Research Sovereignty Beyond Deficit and the Colonial Legacy, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2020; Pimple Kenneth (ed.), Research Ethics, Ashgate, 2008; Bersoff Donald N., Ethical Conflicts Psychology, APA, Washington DC 2008; excerpts and documents selected by the lecturer, e.g.:

– the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity ALLEA – Revised Edition 2023