OBJECTIVES: To study the resuscitation preferences, choice of decision-maker, views on the seeking of patients' wishes and determinants of these of elderly hospital in-patients. DESIGN: Questionnaire administered on admission and prior to discharge. SETTING: Two acute geriatric medicine units (Southampton and Poole). PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred and fourteen consecutive consenting mentally competent patients admitted to hospital as emergencies. RESULTS: Resuscitation was wanted by 60%, particularly married and functionally independent patients and those who had not already considered it. Not wanted resuscitation was (...) associated with lack of social contacts. Sixty-seven per cent welcomed enquiry about their preferences and 78% wanted participation in decision, 43% as sole decision-maker. Wishing to choose oneself was associated with not wanting resuscitation, prior knowledge of it, and lack of a spouse. Patients' opinions remained stable during their admission. CONCLUSIONS: Discussion of resuscitation is practical on hospital admission without causing distress and the views expressed endure through the period of hospitalisation. Elderly patients' attitudes depend partly on personal health and social circumstances. This may assist doctors when patients are unable to participate themselves. (shrink)

We show that if κ is a weakly compact cardinal, then $\left( \matrix \kappa ^{+} \\ \kappa\endmatrix \right)\rightarrow \left(\left( \matrix \alpha \\ \kappa \endmatrix \right)_{m}\left( \matrix \kappa ^{n} \\ \kappa \endmatrix \right)_{\mu}\right)^{1,1}$ for any ordinals α < κ⁺ and µ < κ, and any finite ordinals m and n. This polarized partition relation represents the statement that for any partition $\kappa \times \kappa ^{+}=\underset i<m\to{\bigcup }K_{i}\cup \underset j<\mu \to{\bigcup }L_{j}$ of κ × κ⁺ into m + µ pieces either there (...) are A ∈ [κ]κ, B ∈ [κ⁺]α, and i < m with A × B ⊆ Ki or there are C ∈ [κ]κ, D ∈ [κ⁺]α, and j < μ with C × D ⊆ Lj. Related results for measurable and almost measurable κ are also investigated. Our proofs of these relations involve the use of elementary substructures of set models of large fragments of ZFC. (shrink)

There is increasing concern about “surveillance capitalism,” whereby for-profit companies generate value from data, while individuals are unable to resist (Zuboff 2019). Non-profits using data-enabled surveillance receive less attention. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have embraced data analytics, but the wide latitude that private, profit-oriented enterprises have to collect data is inappropriate. HEIs have a fiduciary relationship to students, not a narrowly transactional one (see Jones et al, forthcoming). They are responsible for facets of student life beyond education. In addition (...) to classrooms, learning management systems, and libraries, HEIs manage dormitories, gyms, dining halls, health facilities, career advising, police departments, and student employment. HEIs collect and use student data in all of these domains, ostensibly to understand learner behaviors and contexts, improve learning outcomes, and increase institutional efficiency through “learning analytics” (LA). ID card swipes and Wi-Fi log-ins can track student location, class attendance, use of campus facilities, eating habits, and friend groups. Course management systems capture how students interact with readings, video lectures, and discussion boards. Application materials provide demographic information. These data are used to identify students needing support, predict enrollment demands, and target recruiting efforts. These are laudable aims. However, current LA practices may be inconsistent with HEIs’ fiduciary responsibilities. HEIs often justify LA as advancing student interests, but some projects advance primarily organizational welfare and institutional interests. Moreover, LA advances a narrow conception of student interests while discounting privacy and autonomy. Students are generally unaware of the information collected, do not provide meaningful consent, and express discomfort and resigned acceptance about HEI data practices, especially for non-academic data (see Jones et al. forthcoming). The breadth and depth of student information available, combined with their fiduciary responsibility, create a duty that HEIs exercise substantial restraint and rigorous evaluation in data collection and use. (shrink)

Background In May 2020, England moved to an opt-out organ donation system, meaning adults are presumed to be an organ donor unless within an excluded group or have opted-out. This change aims to improve organ donation rates following brain or circulatory death. Healthcare staff in the UK are supportive of organ donation, however, both healthcare staff and the public have raised concerns and ethical issues regarding the change. The #options survey was completed by NHS organisations with the aim of understanding (...) awareness and support of the change. This paper analyses the free-text responses from the survey. Methods The #options survey was registered as a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) portfolio trial [IRAS 275992] 14 February 2020, and was completed between July and December 2020 across NHS organisations in the North-East and North Cumbria, and North Thames. The survey contained 16 questions of which three were free-text, covering reasons against, additional information required and family discussions. The responses to these questions were thematically analysed. Results The #options survey received 5789 responses from NHS staff with 1404 individuals leaving 1657 free-text responses for analysis. The family discussion question elicited the largest number of responses (66%), followed by those against the legislation (19%), and those requiring more information (15%). Analysis revealed six main themes with 22 sub-themes. Conclusions The overall #options survey indicated NHS staff are supportive of the legislative change. Analysis of the free-text responses indicates that the views of the NHS staff who are against the change reflect the reasons, misconceptions, and misunderstandings of the public. Additional concerns included the rationale for the change, informed decision making, easy access to information and information regarding organ donation processes. Educational materials and interventions need to be developed for NHS staff to address the concepts of autonomy and consent, organ donation processes, and promote family conversations. Wider public awareness campaigns should continue to promote the positives and refute the negatives thus reducing misconceptions and misunderstandings. Trial registration National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) [IRAS 275992]. (shrink)

This article evaluates the effect of different human resource management (HRM) practices on organizations’ environmental performance. We develop a model to evaluate the influence of a broad range of HRM practices, including environmental performance criteria in managers’ performance evaluations and two types of internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices: socially responsible employee benefits and corporate volunteering practices. To this end, we analyze a sample of 142 manufacturing companies that have completed B Lab’s Impact Assessment process to certify their environmental performance. (...) The results show that including environmental criteria in a higher proportion of managers’ performance evaluations directly impacts organizations’ environmental performance and strengthens the positive effect of other environmental management practices. The findings also demonstrate the direct effects of both types of CSR practices on an organization’s environmental performance. Our study advances recent work on Green HRM and CSR by identifying the specific HRM practices that allow organizations to move from being part of the world’s environmental problem to being part of the solution. (shrink)

Background: Discussions about medical errors facilitate professional learning for physicians and may provide emotional support after an error, but little is known about physicians’ attitudes and practices regarding error discussions with colleagues.Methods: Survey of faculty and resident physicians in generalist specialties in Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the US to investigate attitudes and practices regarding error discussions, likelihood of discussing hypothetical errors, experience role-modelling error discussions and demographic variables.Results: Responses were received from 338 participants . In all, 73% of (...) respondents indicated they usually discuss their mistakes with colleagues, 70% believed discussing mistakes strengthens professional relationships and 89% knew at least one colleague who would be a supportive listener. Motivations for error discussions included wanting to learn whether a colleague would have made the same decision , wanting colleagues to learn from the mistake and wanting to receive support . Given hypothetical scenarios, most respondents indicated they would likely discuss an error resulting in no harm , minor harm or major harm . Fifty-seven percent of physicians had tried to serve as a role model by discussing an error and role-modelling was more likely among those who had previously observed an error discussion .Conclusions: Most generalist physicians in teaching hospitals report that they usually discuss their errors with colleagues, and more than half have tried to role-model discussions. However, a significant number of these physicians report that they do not usually discuss their errors and some do not know colleagues who would be supportive listeners. (shrink)

Nanomaterials have the promise of revolutionizing current treatment and diagnosis of diseases, which has led to 33 nanotherapeutics drugs currently on the market and many more in various stages of clinical trials. With an increasing number of products available and in development, along with the unique, emergent properties of the nanoparticle therapeutics themselves, regulatory agencies are now faced with decisions regarding the regulation of such novel technologies. Regulatory guidance, particularly in pre-clinical stages, has the potential to facilitate quick and safe (...) development of these novel materials, but new regulation beyond what is currently in place must be justified in a clear and distinctive toxic response. Herein, we examine literature that compares and correlates in vivo and in vitro nanotoxicity studies to gain a deeper understanding of the modes of nanoparticle toxicity. Additionally, this comparison aims to identify clear and unique toxicity responses caused by nanoparticles, which informs our perspective on pre-clinical nanotherapeutic oversight. (shrink)

Much of the focus of the published 2011 symposium that inspired this work focused on the question, “When have you reduced risk enough to move from bench/animal studies to ‘first in-human’ studies?” Building applied research ethics related to nanotherapeutics requires bench and clinical scientists to have a clear vision about how to test nanotherapeutic safety, and it is clear that there is still much to be considered at the steps before “in-human” assessment. Herein, the perspective of the bench scientist is (...) brought to bear on using in vivo and in vitro models to assess the safety of nanotherapeutics. Much of this work falls under the purview of the field of nanotoxicology that aims to understand the toxicological impact of engineered nanoscale materials. Engineered nanomaterials include a wide variety of materials that are manipulated and controlled on the nanoscale level where, typically, the nanoparticle or nanomaterial has some dimension that is less than 100 nm. (shrink)

It is often asserted that even our own past is a foreign country: the ideas of past thinkers are, in some ways, alien to us today. For the European historian of non- European philosophy, not only is the past held to be a different country, but it is also the past ofadifferentcountry. This is both convenient and problematic all at once. The historian of non- European philosophy faces a double separation from his/her subject matter; she is both a foreigner and (...) an alien. In this paper, I approach questions of how this historian should orientate herself towards her subject, and why she should care about it at all. (shrink)

This paper draws on nearly two decades of research on health consumer and patients’ organizations in the United Kingdom. In particular, it addresses questions of representation and legitimacy in the health policy process. HCPOs claim to represent the collective interests of patients and others such as relatives and carers. At times they also make claims to represent the wider public interest. Employing Pitkin’s classic typology of formalistic, descriptive, symbolic, and substantive representation, the paper explores how and in what sense HCPOs (...) represent their constituencies. We found that policymakers themselves are less concerned with formal mechanisms adopted by groups and are more concerned with credibility, in particular whether HCPOs carry the confidence of their constituents. While some concerns about legitimacy remain, particularly in relation to funding from commercial interests, we argue that HCPOs bring a unique perspective to the policy process and to focus purely on formalistic representation provides only a partial understanding of their representative role and a constrained view of their collective moral claims. (shrink)

The legal requirements and justifications for collecting patient-identifiable data without patient consent were examined. The impetus for this arose from legal and ethical issues raised during the development of a population-based disease register. Numerous commentaries and case studies have been discussing the impact of the Data Protection Act 1998 and Caldicott principles of good practice on the uses of personal data. But uncertainty still remains about the legal requirements for processing patient-identifiable data without patient consent for research purposes. This is (...) largely owing to ignorance, or misunderstandings of the implications of the common law duty of confidentiality and section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001. The common law duty of confidentiality states that patient-identifiable data should not be provided to third parties, regardless of compliance with the DPA1998. It is an obligation derived from case law, and is open to interpretation. Compliance with section 60 ensures that collection of patient-identifiable data without patient consent is lawful despite the duty of confidentiality. Fears regarding the duty of confidentiality have resulted in a common misconception that section 60 must be complied with. Although this is not the case, section 60 support does provide the most secure basis in law for collecting such data. Using our own experience in developing a disease register as a backdrop, this article will clarify the procedures, risks and potential costs of applying for section 60 support. (shrink)

The historic scientific collections of well-established University Museums—the Whipple at Cambridge and the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford, for example—have long served in university teaching and as objects of research for historians. But what is involved in starting such a museum from scratch? This paper offers some reflections based on recent experiences at the University of Leeds. In a relatively short period, the Leeds project has grown from a small volunteer initiative, aimed at salvaging disparate scientific collections (...) from all over the campus, to a centrally supported and long-term scheme to provide collections care, exhibitions, and public events, as well as material for teaching and research within history and philosophy of science. Recent work undertaken on a range of Leeds objects and collections, including a camera reportedly used to take the first X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA in the 1930s and the Mark 1 prototype of the MONIAC, built and designed at Leeds in 1949 to model the flow of money through the economy, highlights the national and international significance of the University’s scientific heritage as well as the project’s ambition of providing students with on-going collections care responsibilities and object-research experience. Sketching possible futures for the Leeds project, the paper considers challenges confronting the heritage sector more broadly, and how those involved with historic scientific collections can make use of new opportunities for teaching, research, and public engagement. (shrink)

Ray and Cooper (2024) present a clear and compelling argument for giving greater prioritization to environmental injustice in the work we do as bioethicists. Their discussion of justice and vulnera...

Mounting evidence suggests that endorsement of psychological continuity and the afterlife increases with age. This developmental change raises questions about the cognitive biases, social representations, and cultural input that may support afterlife beliefs. To what extent is there similarity versus diversity across cultures in how people reason about what happens after death? The objective of this study was to compare beliefs about the continuation of biological and psychological functions after death in Tanna, Vanuatu, and the United States. Children, adolescents, and (...) adults were primed with a story that contained either natural or supernatural cues. Participants were then asked whether or not different biological and psychological processes continue to function after death. We predicted that across cultures individuals would be more likely to endorse the continuation of psychological processes over biological processes and that a theistic prime would increase continuation responses regarding both types of process. Results largely supported predictions; U.S. participants provided more continuation responses for psychological than biological processes following both the theistic and non-theistic primes. Participants in Vanuatu, however, provided more continuation responses for biological than psychological processes following the theistic prime. The data provide evidence for both cultural similarity and variability in afterlife beliefs and demonstrate that individuals use both natural and supernatural explanations to interpret the same events. (shrink)

In recent years, educational institutions have started using the tools of commercial data analytics in higher education. By gathering information about students as they navigate campus information systems, learning analytics “uses analytic techniques to help target instructional, curricular, and support resources” to examine student learning behaviors and change students’ learning environments. As a result, the information educators and educational institutions have at their disposal is no longer demarcated by course content and assessments, and old boundaries between information used for assessment (...) and information about how students live and work are blurring. Our goal in this paper is to provide a systematic discussion of the ways in which privacy and learning analytics conflict and to provide a framework for understanding those conflicts. -/- We argue that there are five crucial issues about student privacy that we must address in order to ensure that whatever the laudable goals and gains of learning analytics, they are commensurate with respecting students’ privacy and associated rights, including (but not limited to) autonomy interests. First, we argue that we must distinguish among different entities with respect to whom students have, or lack, privacy. Second, we argue that we need clear criteria for what information may justifiably be collected in the name of learning analytics. Third, we need to address whether purported consequences of learning analytics (e.g., better learning outcomes) are justified and what the distributions of those consequences are. Fourth, we argue that regardless of how robust the benefits of learning analytics turn out to be, students have important autonomy interests in how information about them is collected. Finally, we argue that it is an open question whether the goods that justify higher education are advanced by learning analytics, or whether collection of information actually runs counter to those goods. (shrink)

Scientific endeavor is the pursuit of knowledge with the aim of advancing the welfare of all human beings. This endeavor is built on the ideology of science; thus, society relies on the integrity of the practice of science and of scientists themselves. The responsible conduct of research is the essence of good science; however, many of the pedagogical approaches used to instill integrity in science accentuate the negative rather than exemplify ideal professionalism. This paper makes an argument for the inculcation (...) of the appropriate conduct of research via a positive approach. We address the acclimation to the culture of science that supersedes diverse cultural backgrounds of students. We suggest techniques for the implementation of positive strategies and reinforce the benefit of approaching the teaching of ethical behavior as a competitive advantage. We highlight ways in which this approach can empower the individual scientist and the scientific community as a whole. Transmission of the culture of scientific professionalism formalizes the aims of an ideal scientific professional and encourages assimilation and identification as a member of the scientific profession. We purport that instilling scientific professionalism will spur responsible conduct of research. (shrink)

The words in children's language learning environments are strongly predictive of cognitive development and school achievement. But how do we measure language environments and do so at the scale of the many words that children hear day in, day out? The quantity and quality of words in a child's input are typically measured in terms of total amount of talk and the lexical diversity in that talk. There are disagreements in the literature whether amount or diversity is the more critical (...) measure of the input. Here we analyze the properties of a large corpus of speech to children and simulate learning environments that differ in amount of talk per unit time, lexical diversity, and the contexts of talk. The central conclusion is that what researchers need to theoretically understand, measure, and change is not the total amount of words, or the diversity of words, but the function that relates total words to the diversity of words, and how that function changes across different contexts of talk. (shrink)

This essay considers biotrophic cyst and root‐knot nematodes in relation to their biology, host–parasite interactions and molecular genetics. These nematodes have to face the biological consequences of the physical constraints imposed by the soil environment in which they live while their hosts inhabit both above and below ground environments. The two groups of nematodes appear to have adopted radically different solutions to these problems with the result that one group is a host specialist and reproduces sexually while the other has (...) an enormous host range and reproduces by mitotic parthenogenesis. We consider what is known about the modes of parasitism used by these nematodes and how it relates to their host range, including the surprising finding that parasitism genes in both nematode groups have been recruited from bacteria. The nuclear and mitochondrial genomes of these two nematode groups are very different and we consider how these findings relate to the biology of the organisms. BioEssays 30:249–259, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Being a healthcare professional in both paediatric and adult hospitals will mean being exposed to human tragedies and stressful events involving conflict, misunderstanding, and moral distress. There are a number of different structured approaches to reflection and discussion designed to support healthcare professionals process and make sense of their feelings and experiences and to mitigate against direct and vicarious trauma. In this paper, we draw from our experience in a large children’s hospital and more broadly from the literature to identify (...) and analyse four established approaches to facilitated reflective discussions. Each of the four approaches seeks to acknowledge the stressful nature of health professional work and to support clinicians from all healthcare professions to develop sustainable skills so they continue to grow and thrive as health professionals. Each approach also has the potential to open up feelings of uncertainty, frustration, sorrow, anguish, and moral distress for participants. We argue, therefore, that in order to avoid unintentionally causing harm, a facilitator should have specific skills required to safely lead the discussion and be able to explain the nature, scope, safe application, and limits of each approach. With reference to a hypothetical but realistic clinical case scenario, we discuss the application and key features of each approach, including the goals, underpinning theory, and methods of facilitation. (shrink)

Conducting research in a prison setting is ethically challenging. Because history is full of unethical research conducted in prison settings, researchers are often afraid of doing research in this area. It is argued that too much emphasis has been put on the protection of prison inmates as a vulnerable population. Consequently, too little research is being conducted where the focus is on those factors which serve to make the prison population vulnerable. In this paper ethical questions, emerging when conducting a (...) study on literacy and mental health among Norwegian prison inmates, are presented and discussed. Relevant questions relate to topics which include ethical clearance of the research protocol, the consent procedure, clarification of roles and the publication of the results. The ethical questions are discussed in relation to the four principles of ‘respect for the client's rights and dignity’, ‘competence’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘integrity’ set out in the meta-code of ethics, formulated by the European Federation of Professional Psychologists Associations. The wider relationships between ethics in society, research ethics in general, and ethics when conducting research in a prison setting are also considered. (shrink)

The activities of the life sciences are essential to provide solutions for the future, for both individuals and society. Society has demanded growing accountability from the scientific community as implications of life science research rise in influence and there are concerns about the credibility, integrity and motives of science. While the scientific community has responded to concerns about its integrity in part by initiating training in research integrity and the responsible conduct of research, this approach is minimal. The scientific community (...) justifies itself by appealing to the ethos of science, claiming academic freedom, self-direction, and self-regulation, but no comprehensive codification of this foundational ethos has been forthcoming. A review of the professional norms of science and a prototype code of ethics for the life sciences provide a framework to spur discussions within the scientific community to define scientific professionalism. A formalization of implicit principles can provide guidance for recognizing divergence from the norms, place these norms within a context that would enhance education of trainees, and provide a framework for discussing externally and internally applied pressures that are influencing the practice of science. The prototype code articulates the goal for life sciences research and the responsibilities associated with the freedom of exploration, the principles for the practice of science, and the virtues of the scientists themselves. The time is ripe for scientific communities to reinvigorate professionalism and define the basis of their social contract. Codifying the basis of the social contract between science and society will sustain public trust in the scientific enterprise. (shrink)

Ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture have been set by both national governments and their respective livestock sectors. We hypothesize that farmer self-identity influences their assessment of climate change and their willingness to implement measures which address the issue. Perceptions of climate change were determined from 286 beef/sheep farmers and evaluated using principal component analysis. The analysis elicits two components which evaluate identity, and two components which evaluate behavioral capacity to adopt mitigation and adaptation measures. Subsequent Cluster (...) Analyses reveal four farmer types based on the PCA scores. ‘The Productivist’ and ‘The Countryside Steward’ portray low levels of awareness of climate change, but differ in their motivation to adopt pro-environmental behavior. Conversely, both ‘The Environmentalist’ and ‘The Dejected’ score higher in their awareness of the issue. In addition, ‘The Dejected’ holds a high sense of perceived risk; however, their awareness is not conflated with an explicit understanding of agricultural GHG sources. With the exception of ‘The Environmentalist’, there is an evident disconnect between perceptions of agricultural emission sources and their contribution towards GHG emissions amongst all types. If such linkages are not conceptualized, it is unlikely that behavioral capacities will be realized. Effective communication channels which encourage action should target farmers based on the groupings depicted. Therefore, understanding farmer types through the constructs used in this study can facilitate effective and tailored policy development and implementation. (shrink)

Situation selection involves choosing situations based on their likely emotional impact and may be less cognitively taxing or challenging to implement compared to other strategies for regulating emotion, which require people to regulate their emotions “in the moment”; we thus predicted that individuals who chronically experience intense emotions or who are not particularly competent at employing other emotion regulation strategies would be especially likely to benefit from situation selection. Consistent with this idea, we found that the use of situation selection (...) interacted with individual differences in emotional reactivity and competence at emotion regulation to predict emotional outcomes in both a correlational and an experimental field study. Taken together, the findings suggest that situation selection is an effective strategy for regulating emotions, especially for individuals who otherwise struggle to do so. (shrink)

Higher education institutions are mining and analyzing student data to effect educational, political, and managerial outcomes. Done under the banner of “learning analytics,” this work can—and often does—surface sensitive data and information about, inter alia, a student’s demographics, academic performance, offline and online movements, physical fitness, mental wellbeing, and social network. With these data, institutions and third parties are able to describe student life, predict future behaviors, and intervene to address academic or other barriers to student success (however defined). Learning (...) analytics, consequently, raise serious issues concerning student privacy, autonomy, and the appropriate flow of student data. We argue that issues around privacy lead to valid questions about the degree to which students should trust their institution to use learning analytics data and other artifacts (algorithms, predictive scores) with their interests in mind. We argue that higher education institutions are paradigms of information fiduciaries. As such, colleges and universities have a special responsibility to their students. In this article, we use the information fiduciary concept to analyze cases when learning analytics violate an institution’s responsibility to its students. (shrink)

Amid the unrest, dislocation, and uncertainty of seventeenth-century Europe, readers seeking consolation and assurance turned to philosophical and scientific books that offered ways of conquering fears and training the mind—guidance for living a good life. _The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution_ presents a triptych showing how three key early modern scientists, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Leibniz, envisioned their new work as useful for cultivating virtue and for pursuing a good life. Their scientific and philosophical innovations stemmed in (...) part from their understanding of mathematics and science as cognitive and spiritual exercises that could create a truer mental and spiritual nobility. In portraying the rich contexts surrounding Descartes’ geometry, Pascal’s arithmetical triangle, and Leibniz’s calculus, Matthew L. Jones argues that this drive for moral therapeutics guided important developments of early modern philosophy and the Scientific Revolution. (shrink)

“Big Data” and data analytics affect all of us. Data collection, analysis, and use on a large scale is an important and growing part of commerce, governance, communication, law enforcement, security, finance, medicine, and research. And the theme of this symposium, “Individual and Informational Privacy in the Age of Big Data,” is expansive; we could have long and fruitful discussions about practices, laws, and concerns in any of these domains. But a big part of the audience for this symposium is (...) students and faculty in higher education institutions (HEIs), and the subject of this paper is data analytics in our own backyards. Higher education learning analytics (LA) is something that most of us involved in this symposium are familiar with. Students have encountered LA in their courses, in their interactions with their law school or with their undergraduate institutions, instructors use systems that collect information about their students, and administrators use information to help understand and steer their institutions. More importantly, though, data analytics in higher education is something that those of us participating in the symposium can actually control. Students can put pressure on administrators, and faculty often participate in university governance. Moreover, the systems in place in HEIs are more easily comprehensible to many of us because we work with them on a day-to-day basis. Students use systems as part of their course work, in their residences, in their libraries, and elsewhere. Faculty deploy course management systems (CMS) such as Desire2Learn, Moodle, Blackboard, and Canvas to structure their courses, and administrators use information gleaned from analytics systems to make operational decisions. If we (the participants in the symposium) indeed care about Individual and Informational Privacy in the Age of Big Data, the topic of this paper is a pretty good place to hone our thinking and put into practice our ideas. (shrink)

A multidisciplinary faculty committee designed a curriculum to shape biomedical graduate students into researchers with a high commitment to professionalism and social responsibility and to provide students with tools to navigate complex, rapidly evolving academic and societal environments with a strong ethical commitment. The curriculum used problem-based learning (PBL), because it is active and learner-centred and focuses on skill and process development. Two courses were developed: Scientific Professionalism: Scientific Integrity addressed discipline-specific and broad professional norms and obligations for the ethical (...) practice of science and responsible conduct of research (RCR). Scientific Professionalism: Bioethics and Social Responsibility focused on current ethical and bioethical issues within the scientific profession, and implications of research for society. Each small-group session examined case scenarios that included: (1) learning objectives for professional norms and obligations; (2) key ethical issues and philosophies within each topic area; (3) one or more of the RCR instructional areas; and (4) at least one type of moral reflection. Cases emphasised professional standards, obligations and underlying philosophies for the ethical practice of science, competing interests of stakeholders and oversight of science (internal and external). To our knowledge, this is the first use of a longitudinal, multi-semester PBL course to teach scientific integrity and professionalism. Both faculty and students endorsed the active learning approach for these topics, in contrast to a compliance-based approach that emphasises learning rules and regulations. (shrink)