Responsible research
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson February 17, 2017
Session underscores keeping standards and ethics at the forefront
In a world wrestling with fake news, real facts — and how they are substantiated — just can’t be taken for granted.
The venerable Royal Society, which had its founding in London in the 1660s, has as its motto Nullius in verba — “to take no one’s word for it” — meaning that statements made as fact should have been determined by careful experiment. Such painstaking work is what researchers do every day.
“Conduct to the highest degree of standards and ethics is who we are at the University of Delaware. The quality of our work goes hand in hand with academic integrity,” Charlie Riordan, UD’s vice president of research, scholarship and innovation, told more than 170 graduate students, new faculty and research staff at a recent day-long training session focusing on the responsible conduct of research.
Riordan reminded the crowd of major discoveries made at UD, from Nobel laureate Richard Heck’s chemical reaction that revolutionized the making of pharmaceuticals and enabled DNA sequencing, to the touch-pad technology used in smart phones, pioneered by John Elias and Wayne Westerman.
UD faculty achieved more than $139 million in research expenditures during the past fiscal year — a measure of competitive grants awarded. Delaware researchers rank second nationally in publications per doctoral holder and consistently win prestigious honors such as the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award. Researchers joining the UD community today will build on that legacy, Riordan said.
“You are a part of this family,” said Ann Ardis, vice provost for graduate and professional education, who emphasized the critical contributions that UD graduate students from around the world make to research, scholarship and creativity. “Ultimately, our reputation as a graduate degree-granting institution depends on the integrity and quality of the work you do.”
Lead-off presenter Bill Ullman, professor of marine science and policy, keyed on the integrity of data. “You’re trained to be skeptics, but you must rely on the integrity of previous researchers. If you don’t have confidence in what was done before, how can you build into the future? That’s why the quality of your data is so important.”
Readers of published research are entitled to see all the necessary data, know how it was collected, as well as the limits of the methods used, Ullman said. There’s no “cooking the books,” retaining or reporting only data that supports a hypothesis, or “trimming” the data to smooth irregularities.
Nowadays, images are easily enhanced with tools like Photoshop, requiring researchers to be extra-vigilant, Ullman said. According to the digital policy of the journal Nature, for example, images should be only minimally processed.
“When you’re looking at data, be your own worst critic,” Ullman said. “If you’re not happy with the work you’ve done, do it over. Run that additional experiment. Keep good records so that somebody 50 years from now can go back and use that data. I collect more data in a week than I used to collect in a year.”
The day-long event covered a vast array of topics, from the basic rules and principles that apply to the responsible conduct of research, to ethical considerations, the reproducibility of research, requirements for working with human subjects or animals, financial management of research funding, laboratory safety, conflicts of interest, export controls, and what’s in a data management plan.
“Doing research is a big responsibility, so workshops like this are great. It’s important to keep up to date with the rules of the road,” said Tara Tracy, project manager at UD’s Center for Research in Education and Social Policy. She’s managing a multi-state randomized control project at farmers’ markets, evaluating whether or not incentives offered in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly the Food Stamp program) boost the participants’ consumption of healthier foods.
Rosymar Magana, a senior working as an undergraduate research assistant with Tracy, said she gained an even deeper appreciation of the career toward which she is headed. She’s been involved in several research experiences at UD and serves as a McNair Scholar peer mentor. She’s now working on a project on long-acting contraceptives at Christiana Care for her senior internship.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure which area I want to focus on yet, but I know I want to do research,” said Magana, who is applying to graduate school. “I really like it.”
More information on UD’s responsible conduct of research training is available on the Research Office website. Online training is available throughout the year at www.citiprogram.org.
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