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Ethics in 15 min per Week

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Abstract

The demand for science trainees to have appropriate responsible conduct of research instruction continues to increase the attention shown by federal agencies and graduate school programs to the development of effective ethics curriculums. However, it is important to consider that the main learning environment for science graduate students and post-doctoral research fellows is within a laboratory setting. Here we discuss an internal laboratory program of weekly 15-minute ethics discussions implemented and used over the last 3 years in addition to the graduate school’s program of scientific integrity training. During this time, the environment and culture within our laboratory has changed to place greater emphasis on the ethical implications of our own research and the research we evaluate. We still struggle with how to accurately assess this behavioral change; although, we present preliminary survey results on the evaluation and impact of this style of curriculum for ethics instruction in our laboratory.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Nancy L. Jones, PhD, the ANSIR and LCBN laboratories at WFUBMC for supporting the program described here, and we would like to recognize funding support by grants from the National Institute of Health #NS042568 to PJL and #NS054472 to AMP. Finally, we would like to acknowledge our anonymous reviewers for their contribution in honing our work.

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Correspondence to Ann M. Peiffer.

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Peiffer, A.M., Hugenschmidt, C.E. & Laurienti, P.J. Ethics in 15 min per Week. Sci Eng Ethics 17, 289–297 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9197-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9197-3

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