Arts and Humanities
Orientation
Screen challenge: In brief – why a course on research integrity?
Why a course on research integrity (RI)/research ethics?
Why is responsibility in research important? For the simple reason that responsible behaviour is a fundamental component of quality research. Research integrity is not something you go back and consider when everything else is done, nor is it a set of bureaucratic hoops to jump through. Sound, reliable research begins with knowing and meeting your responsibilities as a researcher.
Our goal in writing this course is to provide you with a basic overview of your responsibilities. It is then up to you to meet them. By the end of the course, you should be able to:
- Know, understand and explain the key responsibilities you have as a researcher
- Identify the challenges you could face in meeting those responsibilities
- Be aware of strategies for dealing with pressures and difficult situations.
You are currently starting on the course designed for the Arts and Humanities. More than other areas of research, the arts and humanities cover an unusually diverse range of disciplines and methods, from traditional text-based studies to creative practice, media, and performance. The responsibilities, challenges and examples presented should be applicable to your work, but no course can be designed specifically for your precise research interests. We hope therefore that you will use the suggestions we have provided for additional study to explore in more detail the particular challenges and responsibilities relating to your own work. You may also find it useful to explore one of the Research Integrity courses designed for other disciplinary areas:
Screen duration
At the top of each screen you will see an icon showing the approximate time it will take to complete the core content. These estimates include time to watch videos and complete activities in the central section, but not to complete the additional 'Portfolio activities' or supplemental information provided in the pods, which have their own durations.
Please note that these time estimates are indicative only; every individual will be different. As you work through the unit, gauge whether you are working more or less quickly than the estimates suggest, and modify your expectations accordingly.
- Biomedical sciences
- Natural and physical sciences
- Engineering and technology
- Social and behavioural sciences.
Arts and humanities scholars sometimes question the need for training in research integrity, since misconduct and the other problems addressed in this course seem to be most prevalent in the sciences. Whilst it is true that more has been written about misconduct in the sciences – and in the biomedical sciences in particular – there is no reason to believe that misbehaviour is less common in the arts and humanities. Researchers in the arts and humanities experience similar pressures to publish, to establish priority and to secure funding. It is therefore as important for arts and humanities researchers and scholars to know and understand the norms for responsible professional behaviour.
One of the most exciting aspects of modern research is its growing interdisciplinarity. Students in some disciplines will benefit from exploring beyond this arts and humanities course. For example, anthropologists will benefit also from the social sciences course; archaeologists will benefit from one of the science-orientated courses; language scholars, particularly those working in linguistics, may also find the social science or other science courses useful.
Set alongside this trend is the increasingly international nature of research collaborations and the growing need for common standards to which all researchers can work, no matter where they are based. In writing this course, we have catered as far as possible to a worldwide audience: we refer to rules and regulations from Europe, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and various other countries wherever possible. We also refer to policies and practices from the USA, where much of the research into misconduct has been done and many of the ideas about integrity of research have been formally articulated.
As authors, we have worked as an international, interdisciplinary team to develop this course, with the ultimate goal of helping you assure that integrity plays a positive role in your career as you work to discover new knowledge that will benefit society.
Pods
You will find pods of this nature spread throughout the course. They are organised into the following categories:
- Optional activity (to further extend your thinking)
- Download (containing further information to download and save, print or fill in)
- Useful links (for example, to relevant policies or organisations)
- Your context (indicating areas where you may need to find out the policy at your particular institution or in your subject area)
- RI in the news (links to recent news stories or journal articles)
- RI in practice (video interviews with researchers of all levels reflecting on their own experiences and advice)
- Key terms (definitions of particular terms)
- Useful advice (does what it says on the tin!)
- Quotation (interesting or thought-provoking comments relating to the subject in question)
- Statistics (facts and figures relating to research integrity).
The Research Integrity Author Team
July 2012
Course features
This course has a range of features designed to help you to learn and to apply the content to your own situation.
Pods
On the right-hand side of many of the course screens, you will see pods containing extra information or activities. For example, there is one on the right-hand side of this screen labelled 'Useful information'. Click on these pods to reveal more information.
These pods are designed to present additional, supplementary and supporting information and activities. In particular, the 'Optional activity' pods provide opportunities to extend your study beyond the confines of this course.
Some of them result in documents that can contribute to a research integrity portfolio; these are identified by the presence of a 'portfolio' icon (shown here on the right). You can access the course portfolio from the 'Download' pod on the right-hand side of this screen.
Icons
Certain key features of the course have been identified using icons. In the following activity, click on the tabs to find out what it signifies.
This is used to hightlight optional activities which result in documents that could usefully be saved for future reference or for assessment. You should save the work you produce from these activities to form part of your research integrity portfolio.
This is used to indicate references to real-life situations, scenarios and potential applications.
This is used to indicate paramount principles which stand above all others and should be kept in mind at all times. These principles are identified by a pink box and the 'Do this' icon to the right.
Download
Click here to download the course portfolio document. This draws together supplementary information from throughout the course and provides a space for your notes as you work through the material.