#ethicsteam

What a better way to start the new month than a focus group? That’s right we had our second focus group on the 2nd of May! 8 lovely participants joined us for a discussion on Research Integrity and Ethics while enjoying some cake and coffee. The participants were all UM students from different disciplines and backgrounds. Each of them had his/her own interpretation on what Reseach Integrity and Ethics entail and we can see once again how fragmented this field is for every different faculty. Apart from that, they provide us with really useful recommendations on how to implement Research Integrity and Ethics which we will incorporate to our report.

Many thanks once again to the Premium coordinators and especially to Fabienne for all the help in organizing the focus groups.

Hello everyone! Today we had a lovely lunch with our mentor and coaches while enjoying the sun. We updated them for our progress and for our next steps, how our report will look like and talked about what we learned through the project. Our conclusion was that the university should raise awareness and make students more credible like Hulk. We are still working on how this will be done but don’t worry. As soon as our recommendations will be ready you will be the first to know about it.

Today we had one of our very last meetings. Even if not everyone is in Maastricht, we still find a way to connect and work with each other. We are currently finalizing our report and setting many deadlines for it. We hope our report is done and ready for our client in no time. 

Right now we are writing about the current state of affairs at every faculty. Once again, the faculties are really de-centralized but we are working on a coherent recommendation.

On Wednesday we had our very first focus group. We gathered with 2 research Master students, one Ph.D. students and one professor who is the Director of Ph.Ds in Liege. Our discussion focused on Research Ethics and Integrity, the problems that the field faces at a University level and on recommendations regarding the solution of the problems. It was a lovely discussion with plenty of cake and coffee. We really learned a lot from the students and the professor and we will use all of their input in the report that we are preparing for our client.  Many thanks to EdLab for letting us use its facilities for our focus groups and making this evening really great!

For our project, we conducted research in various journal to learn more about research integrity and ethics. Dr. Luther from the Department of Orthodontics, Leeds University, stated in his  Article “Scientific Misconduct: Tip of an Iceberg or the Elephant in the Room?”: 

Competitive research and educational environments put a pressure on authors, funders, and institutions to publish. Electronic methods are becoming more and more available to modify data and images. However, preventing scientific misconduct would require new systems, education, awareness, and enforcement.

Hello guys! As some of you know from our mid-term presentation, we are going to organize focus groups to get a better insight on the teaching of Research Integrity and Ethics at a university level. On the 15th and 17th of Apri we will organize two focus groups one for research master students and one for Ph.D. candidates. In case you are a research master student that has free time on the 15th April between 18.00-19.00 and you would like to help us while enjoying a nice free afternoon coffee and cake fill the link:

https://forms.gle/EmDmtqBcMJ1UCFGQ9