The University of Copenhagen will pre-empt future scientific fraud with courses on ethics and good scientific behaviour. This is just one of several initiatives outlined at the recent hearing on what to do after the Penkowa scientific fraud scandal..
Ethic courses are a good and necessary initiative, the Dean of Health at Aarhus University Allan Flyvbjerg stated to media recently, and the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Copenhagen Ulla Wewer agrees.
»Here at the University of Copenhagen, we have had a special focus on this after the Penkowa case« she says in response to a University Post query.
Too much of a good thing
Apart from giving students insight into the ethics of good scientific research, the courses will also teach what to do with cases of possible scientific malpractice.
Not all PhD students are enthusiastic about the initiative. Ethics are already covered in the introductory course to PhD programmes, and PhD student at the Faculty of Life Sciences, Gerrald Starr, feels that such a course will be a repetition of what already exists.
»Well, of course this is relevant to what we are doing. Too much ethics can never be a bad idea,« he says, before adding: »But we already have a lot about ethics in our introductory course, so this initiative does feel a bit redundant.«
Read other articles from the Penkowa hearing here: Students to get complaints officer and Penkowa hearing: Avoiding the P-word
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Comments
There should be mandatory
There should be mandatory ethic courses not only for PhD, but for Bachelors and Masters too.
When I, as a non-Danish student, tried to carry out a research for a course, I was really surprised that no one knew the ethics that regulates research in Denmark. After a long wait the student counsellor manage to find for me a very old act which states some broad points about what should be and what shouldn't be done in research in human sciences. I was also surprised that the student counsellor was telling me that I was the first person to ask for something about that.
Ethics, specially when working in social sciences and humanities (In general other areas of knowledge too, but those are my field) are a necessity. Not only rules for research that protect the subjects of research, but rules that protect the research itself, the researcher and the people investing in a particular research.
Maybe I am too custom to work with ethic standards and documentation from my previous studies or maybe Danish system is more relaxed and trust more in people when doing research.
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