Ethics and ethical behaviour are the fundamental pillars of a civilised society. The focus on ethical behaviour is indispensable in certain fields such as medicine, finance, or law. In fact, ethics gets precedence with anything that would include, affect, transform, or influence upon individuals, communities or any living creatures. Many institutions within Europe have set up their own committees to focus on or approve activities that have ethical impact. In contrast, lesser-developed countries are trying to set up these committees to (...) govern their academia and research. As the first European consortium established to assist academic integrity, European Network for Academic Integrity, we felt the importance of guiding those institutions and communities that are trying to conduct research with ethical principles. We have established an ethical advisory working group within ENAI with the aim to promote ethics within curriculum, research and institutional policies. We are constantly researching available data on this subject and committed to help the academia to convey and conduct ethical behaviour. Upon preliminary review and discussion, the group found a disparity in understanding, practice and teaching approaches to ethical applications of research projects among peers. Therefore, this short paper preliminarily aims to critically review the available information on ethics, the history behind establishing ethical principles and its international guidelines to govern research.The paper is based on the workshop conducted in the 5th International conference Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond, in Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania in 2019. During the workshop, we have detailed a) basic needs of an ethical committee within an institution; b) a typical ethical approval process ; and c) the ways to obtain informed consent with some examples. These are summarised in this paper with some example comparisons of ethical approval processes from different universities. We believe this paper will provide guidelines on preparing and training both researchers and research students in appropriately upholding ethical practices through ethical approval processes. (shrink)

Although much of the focus on responsible conduct in research has been defined by courses or online training, it is generally understood that this is less important than what happens in the research environment. On the assumption that providing faculty with tools and resources to address the ethical dimensions of the practice of research would be useful, a new workshop was convened ten times across seven academic institutions and at the annual meeting of a professional society. Workshops were attended by (...) 91 faculty, 71 of whom completed evaluations strongly supportive of the value of the workshop. Surveys of trainees identified by the faculty allowed for invitations to complete an online survey before and 6 months after the workshops, respectively resulting in response rates of 43 and 51%. Faculty and trainees were highly supportive of the feasibility, relevance, and effectiveness of the implementation by the faculty of one or more of the five strategies featured in the workshop. However, surprisingly over 70% of the trainees reported use of one or more of those strategies prior to faculty participation in the workshops. In sum, the workshops for faculty were successful, and the proposed strategies were deemed of value, but it is likely that the faculty voluntarily choosing to participate in these workshops were perhaps not surprisingly faculty who are already engaging in some of these strategies. This model is likely a useful adjunct to encouraging a culture of ethics, but it is not by itself sufficient to do so. (shrink)

Research on academic cheating by high school students and undergraduates suggests that many students will do whatever it takes, including violating ethical classroom standards, to not be left behind or to race to the top. This behavior may be exacerbated among pre-med and pre-health professional school students enrolled in laboratory classes because of the typical disconnect between these students, their instructors and the perceived legitimacy of the laboratory work. There is little research, however, that has investigated the relationship between high (...) aspirations and academic conduct. This study fills this research gap by investigating the beliefs, perceptions and self-reported academic conduct of highly aspirational students and their peers in mandatory physics labs. The findings suggest that physics laboratory classes may face particular challenges with highly aspirational students and cheating, but the paper offers practical solutions for addressing them. (shrink)