Ethics Education and Scientific and Engineering Research: What's Been Learned? What Should Be Done?

随着研究环境变得越来越复杂，机构和研究人员努力确保学生和博士后研究人员负责任的专业发展。跨学科和国际研究活动增加了挑战，商业利益的日益参与也增加了挑战。科学、工程和技术的新发展在社会中的复杂相互作用又增加了一层困难。几十年来，美国国家科学基金会和其他研究机构一直支持开展负责任的研究和指导活动，并调查和评估道德问题行为和道德教育的有效性。公众和国会对这些方案的需要的持续关注表明，现在是审查已取得的进展并考虑如何改进这些努力的适当时机。国家科学院将于2008年夏末举办为期一天半的讲习班，将对这些目标感兴趣和负责的各方面聚集在一起，研究如何最好地确保实现这些目标。讲习班规划委员会包括有关社区的代表：科学家、工程师、学术管理人员、专业协会和出版物、科学和工程伦理领域的专家以及初级研究人员。为了进行深入的讨论和起草会议，与会人数将限于25人。研讨会将包括简要介绍和扩大讨论的问题，资源，赞助，需求，和潜在的选择，为今后的步骤，从每个赞助的代表。它将确定在辅导和道德教育方面可采用的材料和有希望的做法，审查在研究和教育活动中处理辅导和道德教育问题的效率较高和较低的教学方法，并提供成功方法和成果的实例。讨论将出席的专业人员的负责任的发展更广泛的构思比传统的负责任的研究课题，如伪造和剽窃行为的元素，强调注意学科的广度和非医疗设置。将讨论如何在研究人员与具有科学和工程伦理学相关领域专门知识的学者和研究人员之间建立桥梁，并可能有助于描述积极的例子。将确定研究结果和有效的培训方法、教材和做法，同时沿着关于向用户传播道德操守培训工具以及关于今后研究、教育创新和外联活动的建议。最后，讲习班与会者将查明知识库中的空白，以了解在道德操守教育和道德操守及相关领域的辅导中，哪些做法对所有相关群体有效，从而为规划今后的研究和教育评估奠定基础。研讨会报告员和各学院的工作人员将利用这些提交的材料撰写一份研讨会总体总结，该总结将在各学院的网站上以及将广泛散发讲习班摘要的印刷本和宣传小册子。各学院将广泛宣传讲习班摘要和相关学院方案和出版物的可用性。与会者将在各种专业协会和学术协会会议上讨论研讨会，并在他们的通讯和期刊中描述研讨会。研讨会摘要的传播将广泛的实际和智力使用的调查人员和机构试图回应有关道德培训和指导的要求，在新的美国竞争法HR 2272，第7009节。

As research environments grow ever more complex, institutions and investigators struggle to assure responsible professional development for students and postdoctoral researchers. Interdisciplinary and international research activities add to the challenges, as does the increasing involvement of commercial interests. The complicated interactions of new developments in science, engineering, and technology in society add another layer of difficulty. For several decades, NSF and other research agencies have supported projects to develop responsible conduct of research and mentoring activities and to investigate and assess ethically problematic behaviors and the efficacy of ethics education. Continuing attention to the need for these programs from the public and Congress indicates that this is an opportune time to review progress that has been made and consider how to improve these efforts. The National Academies will host a day and a half workshop in late summer 2008, that brings together the constituencies interested in and responsible for these goals, to examine how best to insure that they are met. The workshop planning committee includes representation from the concerned communities: scientists, engineers, academic administrators, professional associations and publications, experts in fields of science and engineering ethics, and junior researchers. In order to provide for intensive discussion and drafting sessions, participation will be limited to 25 persons. The workshop will include brief presentations and extended discussion about the issues, resources, constituencies, needs, and potential options for next steps from representatives of each of the constituencies. It will identify adoptable materials and promising practices in mentoring and ethics education, examining more and less effective pedagogical methods to address mentoring and ethics education in both research and educational activities, and providing examples of successful approaches and outcomes. The discussion will attend to elements of the responsible development of professionals more broadly conceived than traditional responsible conduct of research topics such as falsification and plagiarism, emphasizing attention to disciplinary breadth and non-medical settings. How to build bridges between research investigators and scholars and researchers with expertise in relevant domains of science and engineering ethics will be discussed and positive examples may be helpfully delineated. Research findings and effective training methods, educational materials, and practices will be identified, along with suggestions for dissemination of ethics training tools to users, and for future research, educational innovations, and outreach activities. Finally, the workshop attendees will identify gaps in the knowledge base about what works in ethics education and mentoring in ethics and related areas for all of the relevant constituencies, providing a basis for planning future research and educational assessments.Attendees will draft summaries of the workshop discussions; workshop rapporteurs and Academies' staff will use these submissions to author an overall workshop summary that will be published on the Academies' website as well as in a printed version, and a promotional brochure about the workshop summary will be broadly disseminated. The Academies will publicize the availability of the workshop summary and associated Academies' programs and publications widely. Attendees will talk about the workshop at varied professional society and academic association meetings, and describe it in their newsletters and journals. Dissemination of the workshop summary will be of broad practical and intellectual use to investigators and institutions attempting to respond to the requirements concerning ethics training and mentoring in the new America COMPETES Act HR 2272, Section 7009.