Research Ethics
Penn State is committed to educating about and promoting research ethics within the University community. The need for research integrity crosses all disciplines and areas of focus. Regulations range from federal laws governing the conduct of scientific research to University and professional policies prohibiting falsification and plagiarism.
As research has become more complex, more collaborative, and more costly, issues of research ethics have become similarly complex, extensive, and important. Issues in research ethics now extend to appropriate methods for data "cleaning" in statistical analysis, management of professional collaborations "gone awry," and monitoring of conflict of interest issues among administrators, faculty, and graduate researchers.
The most immediate objectives of education and training in research ethics are to ensure compliance with legislation and regulations and to increase understanding of specific legislative guidelines among university faculty, graduate students, and staff. Yet beyond compliance, there are a number of other objectives that are also important, including:
- Increasing understanding and judgment in applying the guidelines across a wide range of situations and a wider range of potential participants, such as administrative staff and graduate assistants;
- Promoting best practices in the conduct of research and scientific investigation;
- Establishing a university culture focused on what it means to be an ethical researcher, so that this shared ideal is supported in ways that are explicit (i.e., regulatory) and tacit (i.e., cultural, such as "the way we do things around here").
Penn State Policies
General Standards of
Professional Ethics
Handling Inquiries/Investigations
into Questions of Ethics in Research and in other Scholarly Activities
The following Web sites provide additional information about specific university programs, professional organizations, and regulatory institutions and policies on research ethics:
University Programs
Survival Skills and Ethics
Program at the University of Pittsburgh
This organization conducts programs to help graduate students gain crucial
"survival skills," including the ability to make oral presentations,
to publish research articles; to learn how to teach, to obtain and keep
a job, to manage stress and time, and to behave responsibly. These programs
are conducted both locally at the University of Pittsburgh and through workshops
at other institutions.
Teaching Research
Ethics Programs and Workshop (TRE) at Indiana University
The Teaching Research Ethics program is an ongoing project directed toward
research ethics for scientists. Its cornerstone program is a workshop in
teaching research ethics for scientists who train graduate students. The
program's Web site offers a newsletter, bibliography, resource list, and
selected materials.
Research Integrity
Newsletter
The Graduate School at the Michigan State University maintains a semi-annual
newsletter that discusses research integrity.
Professional Organizations
Applied Research Ethics National
Association (ARENA)
ARENA is a national organization for professionals concerned with issues
relating to the protection of human subjects, the humane care and treatment
of animals, scientific misconduct, ethical decision-making in healthcare,
and other ethical issues pertaining to biomedical and behavioral research.
Regulatory Institutions and Policies
Office of Research Integrity (ORI)
The ORI, located within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
promotes honesty in biomedical and behavior research at 4,000 institutions
worldwide. They monitor institutional investigations of research misconduct
and facilitate the responsible conduct of research through educational,
preventive, and regulatory activities.
Office for Human Research Protections
(OHRP)
OHRP is a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that
provides human subjects policy guidelines, compliance oversight, workshops,
and educational materials.
The
Belmont Report on Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of
Human Subjects Research
The Belmont Report summarizes the policies of the National Commission for the
Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. This
report presents the basic ethical principles that should underlie the conduct
of biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects and the guidelines
that should be followed to assure that such research is conducted in accordance
with those principles.