Mandatory Doctoral Course: Research Ethics (100% online delivery)

Course code

RES800, ELEC834

Course type

Doctoral Program Lecture

Weekly Hours

2,0

ECTS

Term

FS 2023

Language

Englisch

Lecturers

Prof. Dr. Fabiola Heike Gerpott

Please note that exchange students obtain a higher number of credits in the BSc-program at WHU than listed here. For further information please contact directly the International Relations Office.

Course content

Day 1: Introduction & Ethics Proposal Part I

• Many shades of grey: Moral dilemmas

• How to write an ethics proposal: Informed consent forms

• Ethics approval – An international perspective

Day 2 – Morning: Ethics Proposal Part II

• Filling in an ethics application form for an ethics application

• Reviewing an application for ethical approval (feedback session)

• Case Study Academic Misconduct

Day 2 – Afternoon: Good Practices, Conflicts & Data Handling

• DFG recommendations for safeguarding good scientific practice

• How should (co-)authorship be determined? A discussion of concrete examples (e.g., exchanging authorship favors with colleagues, faculty members demanding authorship on a publication coming out of a dissertation)

• Research Data Management

Day 3: Team Presentations Open Science

o What is open science? An introduction to principles of transparent and reproducible research

o How to publish open access?

o Getting started with pre-registration

o New publication processes to increase transparency

o Wrap-Up: Open Topics & Final Thoughts

Class dates

Date	Time
Monday, 03.04.2023	09:00 - 18:00
Tuesday, 04.04.2023	09:00 - 18:00
Wednesday, 05.04.2023	09:00 - 18:00

Learning outcomes

Upon completing the course, you should be able to…

Analyze and review the work of others on ethical standards
Evaluate your own research in terms of ethics procedures
Plan your data handling and analysis plan for studies
Critically discuss publications policies
Consider alternative routes in the publication process
Conduct open and reproducible research

Literature

Bhattacharjee, Y. (2013). The Mind of a Con Man. The New York Times, retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?hp&_r=0Dominus, S. (2017). When the revolution came for Amy Cuddy. The New York Times, retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/magazine/when-the-revolution-came-for-amy-cuddy.htmlAcademy of Management (2019). Ethics Video Series. Retrieved from http://aom.org/Multi-Media/Ethics-Video-Series/Ethics-Video-Series.aspx?terms=ethics%20video%20seriesFanelli, D, (2009). How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data. Plos One, 4: 5, e5738. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005738Kacmar, M. K. (2009). An Ethical Quiz. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 432-434. Doi: 10.5465/AMJ.2009.41330319Kerr, N. L. (1998). HARKing: hypothesizing after the results are known. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(3): 196-217. Doi: 10.1207/s15327957pspr0203_4Martin, BR, (2013). Whither research integrity? Plagiarism, self-plagiarism and coercive citation in an age of research assessment. Research Policy, 42, 1005-1014. Doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2013.03.011Macfarlane, B. (2010). Researching with integrity: The ethics of academic enquiry. New York: Routledge.Murphy, K. R. & Aguinis, H. J (2019). HARKing: How badly can cherry-picking and question trolling produce bias in published results? Business Psychology, 34. DOI: 10.1007/s10869-017-9524-7Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349: 6251, aac4716. Doi: 10.1126/science.aac4716Office of Research Integrity (2019). The Lab. Interactive Movie on Research Misconduct. Retrieved from https://ori.hhs.gov/THELAB

Exam

During the course, you are expected to…

… actively participate in the class room (30%)
… write an ethics proposal for your own research (40%)
… present an ethics-related topic with your team (30%)