Designing Graduate Training on Academic and Research Integrity: Graduate Student and Experts' Experiences
Date
2024-04-10
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Abstract
Academic and research integrity is an integral part of graduate training across academic disciplines. This conference session explores academic and research integrity experts’ and graduate student’s experience designing self-paced graduate level training courses that aim to promote graduate students’ ethical decision-making practices in their academic and research activities. Designing training with students (not for students) ensures the inclusion of students’ voices and perspectives, promoting effective training implementation. We argue that student(s) inclusion is essential in designing graduate training to promote academic and research integrity, upholding the equity principle of “nothing about us without us”.
Description
Recommendations:
First, we recommend adopting a multidisciplinary approach when designing any training on the scholarship of academic and research integrity (SoARI). This can be possible through effective communication and collaboration with leaders, faculty members, research methodologists, and students from across faculties during the process of designing and implementing the training. It is also important to consult with experts from academic integrity, Indigenous research, research data management, and community liaison to include multidisciplinary perspectives.
Second, it is essential to ensure students' active participation as partners of designing training on SoARI. Student participation matters not only in designing but effective implementation and outcomes of the training in long run. Students' participation can be ensured by inviting them to contribute in the different stages of designing the training.
Third, students' accessibility to the designed training, regardless of their neurodiversity and communication style, is fundamental. To prepare and ensure training modules are accessible for everyone, it is essential to consult and collaborate with learning and design specialists who are sound in universal design for learning. Their expertise of designing the same contents in multimodal forms make training module easily accessible to everyone.
Fourth, every educational institution is increasingly recognized for its diversity, intersectionality, and Indigeneity. The training we design for students must consider equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization, and Indigenization in terms of participation, access, and learning resource mobilization. In addition to Universal Design for Learning it is important to consult with equity experts and Indigenous persons to ensure that the content is attentive to EDIA and avoids perpetuating systemic discrimination against equity-deserving people. Precise details about how this is done is determined in consultation with experts from the various constituent groups. It is important to remember the motto, “Nothing about us without us” in developing ethics training.
Last, building sustainability mechanism from the very beginning is crucial. Sustainability is a core issue in self-paced training. When we talk about sustainability in this context, we are speaking specifically about the ways in which the course can continue to effectively serve its participants over time. The training modules need ongoing resourcing and maintenance. Regular updates to the content and resources are crucial to make training appropriate over time and needs. It is important to designate someone responsible for maintaining and updating the training based on trainees' and experts' feedback.
Cite as:
Dahal, B., Eaton, S. E., & Godley, J. (2024, March 10). Designing graduate training on academic and research integrity: Graduate student and experts experiences [conference presentation]. International Center for Academic Integrity 2024 Annual Conference, Calgary, Canada.