Ethical Aspects of Engagement in Graduate Education
Two days ago I wrote about "Public Engagement for Graduate Students in Science and Engineering". I'd like to follow this up with some reflections about the ethical issues that should be touched upon in teaching grad students about engaged research in the STEM disciplines. Especially important are issues that might arise in working with publics in some kind of partnership.
In the health sciences, ethical concerns about the protection of human subjects are paramount. Not only do regular Institutional Review Board (IRB) concerns have to be satisfied for university researchers, but if work is done in collaboration with a community organization, then those community members who are involved in the research should also have tproper training in human subjects protection and data privacy issues. In addition, there's active debate whether special IRBs, with more than the (usually token) complement of community members, should be appointed to oversee community-based work.
If graduate students take internships with companies, intellectual property (IP) rights are a particular concern. Presumably the IP developed during an internship belongs to the company, but care needs to be taken not to inadvertently transfer IP developed at the university.
The most frequent ethical concerns in scientific research, in addition to human or animal subjects and intellectual property, are fraud, plagiarism, and authorial conflicts.These could become manifest in somewhat different ways in public partnerships, particularly with non-academic community partners who may not know all of the canons of data integrity, who may not appreciate the complexities of citing the work of others, and who may not realize the responsibilities accruing to authorship. (On the other hand, academic researchers may be dismissive of the valid claim of community partners to be coauthors.) Taking the trouble to teach about these concerns could be useful not only for the community partner but also for the academic partner who can learn a lot from the process of teaching.
My colleague in the Philosophy Department, Naomi Scheman, has emphasized the question of community trust in research results: Why should university researchers be trusted when they're researching things of particular importance and sensitivity to a community, and the community is not given the opportunity to learn about, question, and shape the research. These situations could easily arise in environmental toxicology projects, for example, where studies of local accumulations of toxins could raise concerns about viability of scarce housing stock, accusations of irresponsible parenting, etc. One can argue that in such situations, academic researchers have an ethical as well as a practical responsibility to involve community partners deeply in the conceptualization, execution, and analysis of the research.
What are some of the ethical responsibilities that arise when volunteering in a school or museum? One is to be dependable, to show up when scheduled and to be prepared. Another is to know the material well, to be prepared to teach and discuss at a level appropriate to the audience. A third is to develop some teaching skills: how to deal with a disruptive student, how to keep the interest of the group, how to elicit active learning. It's important to be respectful of the time of the people we're trying to help.
The same principles apply when mentoring a younger college student: be dependable and communicate at the appropriate level. In addition, although developing a friendship with a mentee is a good thing, developing too close a personal relationship, especially one with romantic or sexual overtones, is not.
Programs that use the professional expertise of students to help communities, such as civil engineering students working on a water purification project in a needy rural community, of course need to exercise all the responsibility and ethical standards of practicing professionals.