Fortbildungen für Forschende und Lehrende
Contents
Hair-raising cases of scientific misconduct, e.g. unethical experiments, falsification of data and extensive plagiarism, receive a lot of media attention. However, not only the spectacular, but also the less spectacular and seemingly more frequent cases of scientific misconduct undermine the necessary trust among researchers as well as society's trust in science (where "science" is broadly defined to include all academic disciplines).
For this reason, the German Research Foundation (DFG) has developed recommendations for safeguarding good scientific practice. The workshop is based on these recommendations and will address the following topics:
- Local, national and international rules and regulations of good scientific practice
- Ethical issues of research design: Are all research questions and methods admissible?
- Handling of data (e.g. from surveys): Dos, don'ts, caveats
- Dealing with the work of others: plagiarism
- Publication and authorship: pirate printing, authorship criteria
- The relationship between supervisor and supervisee
- Conflicts of interest in academic research
- Institutional handling of scientific misconduct
The morning of the first workshop day will be dedicated to a general introduction to good scientific practice. In the afternoon, we will start working on specific topics of good scientific practice. On the second day, we will continue to focus on specific topics and conclude with the question of how we can deal with scientific misconduct (individual and institutional).
A better understanding of good scientific practice will not only help you to avoid inadvertent misconduct, recognise and deal appropriately with questionable behaviour by others; it will also improve your research and, as good scientific practice is increasingly enforced by scientific institutions, increase your chances of future research funding.
Methods
The workshop requires attendance. We will address and use different methods to approach questions of good scientific practice, e.g. case discussions, moral dilemmas, ethical decision making. As you are expected to actively engage with the topic, the workshop will focus on discussion, group work and tutorials (in connection with lecture/seminar).
Prerequisites
- The workshop does not require any prior familiarisation with good scientific practice.
- Two weeks before the workshop, the trainer will provide some preparation tasks (about 1 hour of work) to be completed by one week before the workshop.