Graduate Division

GDIV 403, Interdisciplinary Seminar: Research and Scholarship Ethics is a one unit course offered in Fall and Spring quarters, open to graduate students (for credit), and designed as an option to meet requirements for training in RCR.

You can find GDIV 403 in the Schedule of Classes each Fall and Spring quarter, and register for this seminar through R'Web. 

Course objectives: The purpose of this course is to engage students in reading, considering, and discussing the responsible conduct of research across different disciplines. The course is designed as an option for meeting current federal regulations, which require that all NSF grants and all NIH training grants provide training in the responsible conduct of research. 

Course description: This course covers many varying topics, which might include: 

•             Research Misconduct 
•             Data Management 
•             Use of Human and Animal Subjects 
•             Collaboration and Mentoring 
•             Authorship, Publication and Peer Review 
•             Conflicts of Interest and Commitment 

The format of this course is some lecture, with an emphasis on class presentation/discussion and individual writing assignments. 

To complete this course, students must meet all of the following requirements: 

1. Attendance and Participation: Attend and participate in all ten meetings of the course, including a review of any assigned readings before the scheduled class time. If you know you will be unavailable for any of the sessions, please let me know as soon as possible. 
2. Presentations of Current Events:  Students will choose a topic and will be asked to find a scientific or lay story/article/blog posting/video clip/novel/book that relates in some way to that topic.  The student will be instructed to use that material to clarify or problematize key issues for the topic, and to engage the class in discussion. For the presentations, you should forward your plans by e- mail to the course instructor no later than 72 hours before your presentation is scheduled. 
3. In addition to the above, there are 3 individual short writing assignments.   

This one-unit course is available for satisfactory/no credit only, not for a letter grade. To receive credit for the course or for the purpose of NIH or NSF training requirements, the student must attend all 10 class meetings, complete assigned readings, participate in class discussions, and contribute to group assignments. 

The Research Ethics Education Program has developed this series in coordination with the UC Riverside PostDoc Association. These sessions are designed to be informal discussions and explorations of various issues that researchers regularly confront. While this series is an option for meeting the 8 hours of substantial face to face discussion time as required by the NIH for students funded on an NIH mentored training grant, it is also an important and useful series for any postdoctoral researcher, no matter the funding source or discipline.

The dates/topics/speakers for the series in Winter 2019 are below:

The Director of the Research Ethics Education Program offers various train the trainers curricula for faculty from a range of disciplines who might be interested in initial or additional education in the responsible conduct of research [RCR], as well as those who are interested in research ethics education more broadly defined. 

Following is a description of the available curricula*: 

• Research Ethics Courses: This workshop is designed to result in concrete, discipline-specific strategies and plans to create courses on the subject of research ethics. Such courses can help to meet NSF and NIH requirement for teaching of responsible conduct of research. 
• Research Ethics Modules: This workshop is designed to result in concrete, discipline-specific strategies and plans to create modules/lessons for already existing courses [methods courses, data management courses] on the subject of research ethics. Such courses can help to meet NSF and NIH requirement for teaching of responsible conduct of research. 
• Promoting Ethics in Research:  This workshop is designed to result in concrete, discipline-specific strategies and plans to incorporate research ethics education into the mentoring of trainees and staff. Such mentoring can help to meet NSF and NIH requirement for teaching of responsible conduct of research. 

Please contact the Director for additional information or to request a training.

*These workshops were first created at UC San Diego; I thank the Director of the Research Ethics Program at UCSD, Dr. Michael Kalichman, for permission to use the workshop descriptions here.

Throughout the Fall, Winter and Spring quarters, the Research Ethics Education Program will, on request of a PI, host a breakfast or lunch conversation in a lab meeting/journal club/brown bag lunch event or similar gathering. This is meant to be an informal conversation concerning any area of practice in which the PI and the lab members have interest. It can also be a more formal presentation depending on the topic and the context. These breakfast/lunch programs are limited to 10 participants, including the PI.  In the future, we hope to expand this to include a dinner event once per quarter, with an invited speaker. 

We provide consultation to programs and departments on the development of RCR training plans for inclusion in grant  proposals, as well as evaluation of current or planned RCR approaches and materials.