Volume 2, Number 1, Oct 2001

Research Ethics: Cases and Commentaries

Faculty, staff and students at research universities may find themselves facing particularly challenging ethical conflicts, often with little support or previous experience to help them cope effectively. To better prepare future researchers and support ethical decision making, the National Science Foundation gave Indiana University, Bloomington a 4-year grant to explore Graduate Research Ethics Education. The project brought together many graduate and postdoctoral students in the natural sciences who shared their experiences in this area. Together they produced a 5-volume set of Cases and Commentaries that provides some excellent examples of the variety of problems and conflicts that may crop up. They provide a valuable starting place for discussion, and in some cases can serve as a source of role-play materials for campus mediators in training.

The collection, edited by Brian Schrag, is now available in full-text on the web. Case topics cover a broad range. A section on Relationships in the Lab includes such cases as "What a Site" dealing with a lab partner who is viewing web-based pornography on one of the labs computers, and "The Slave Driver vs. the Lazy Student" exploring a faculty member who appears to be stalling a student's progress in order to keep them working in the faculty member's lab. A section on Integrity in Research includes a case "Collaboration and Credit" wherein a faculty member is presenting another's work as his own.

The full collection of cases and commentaries can be found at http://onlineethics.org/reseth/appe/index.html.

Page last updated 11/27/2005

A project of Campus Conflict Resolution Resources.
Supported by a FIPSE grant from the US Department of Education
and seed money from the Hewlett Foundation-funded CRInfo project.

Correspondence to CMHE Report
(Attn: Bill Warters)
Campus Conflict Resolution Resources Project
Department of Communication
585 Manoogian Hall
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48201.

Please send comments, bug reports, etc. to the Editor.

© 2000-2005 William C. Warters & WSU, All rights reserved.