Developing a Culture of RCR in Graduate Education at the University of Kansas

KU’s recent CGS/NSF grant project built on a strong foundation of RCR-related activities, including an earlier CGS-ORI grant. ORI funding enabled the Graduate School to establish several sustainable programs including augmenting a number of regularly offered graduate classes to include RCR-related modules. The ORI grant was intended to raise awareness of ethics and Responsible Conduct of Research Issues on campus through programming along with encouraging development of modules.

KU began an annual RCR Awareness Week in 2004 that included presentations on all three KU campuses (KU-Lawrence, KU-Medical Center, and the KU-Edwards Campus) by KU faculty and staff, as well as a keynote address by a national authority. All presentations were taped and are part of a video archive. Through a funding collaboration with the KU Center for Research, the Graduate School continued Awareness Week and faculty grants after the ORI funding ended.

The NSF grant enabled the Graduate School to begin assessment projects and expand RCR Awareness Week activities to include a 2-day debate and presentation skills workshop for graduate students that culminated in a public debate by four workshop participants on the use of embryonic stem cells in research. Graduate students in a health and science writing program served as panelists.During the NSF grant period the Graduate School was awarded an Ethics Education in Engineering and Science grant (EESE) and joint activities were developed including establishment of an advisory board, creation of a new course, and RCR workshops for faculty.

In July 2007 the Graduate School merged with the research office to form Research and Graduate Studies. RGS developed two additional initiatives with the CGS/NSF funding.

The first involves a dialogue among faculty across the University, including disciplines outside STEM areas, on the topic of “Responsible Scholarship” that will help to clarify commonalities and differences in what it means to carry out responsible academic work across the disciplines.  Participants will contribute essays about significant issues in their respective fields as a print and on-line resource.

The second is a revision of an earlier Graduate School and Libraries publication funded through the ORI award, The Digital Difference: Responsible Conduct of Research in a Networked World by Richard Fyffe and Scott Walter. It will continue to be available in print and online.  This publication deals with a range of subjects relating to the responsible use, citation, sharing and preservation of information in a networked and digital world.

Both of these efforts are seen as part of a larger dialogue that the Office of Research & Graduate Studies will pursue to sustain and expand awareness about RCR within STEM disciplines and broader issues of responsible conduct throughout all areas of the University.

< Back to Awardees