Public Engagement and Research Ethics
Should public engagement be part of graduate training in research ethics?
Instruction in research ethics, or responsible conduct of research, is an increasingly common component of graduate education. A good case can be made that a concern for the public context of scholarly research is an important part of research ethics. Examples of how a scholarly discipline interacts with the public can enliven and deepen graduate courses or discussions of responsible conduct of research.
Those of us who have taught graduate students about research ethics know that it's helpful to have case studies about common ethical dilemmas: fraud, authorship, proper treatment of human and animal subjects, etc. There are several books and several web sites that serve this purpose. One that we've developed at the University of Minnesota is at http://www.research.umn.edu/ethics/materials/.
Most of these case studies deal with issues within the academy. It would be useful to develop a collection of cases that emphasize interactions between academia and the public. Prof. Ray Newman, of our Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, has pointed out a good example: a TMDL case from the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science.
Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is a modeling technology used to develop a comprehensive view of all pertinent activity in a given watershed and of how much pollution a given body of water can absorb without violating water quality standards. The case describes the development of a TMDL for nitrate in a low-flow creek and river system that flows through a predominantly agricultural region and has a poultry processing plant discharging wastewater into it. The participants included a university researcher, a graduate student, an independent consulting engineer, the processing plant, poultry farmers, state agencies charged with maintaining water quality, and a citizens advisory group. Interactions among this cast of characters raises a rich set of ethical issues, of the sort that might arise in many community-campus partnerships.
Those of you reading this blog may have other examples from your own disciplines. If you send them to me at this address, I'll undertake to compile them into a web resource for general use. Such material will make it easier for us to integrate public engagement into our teaching and research training.