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We report a randomized trial of a research ethics training intervention designed to enhance ethics communication in university science and engineering laboratories, focusing specifically on authorship and data management. The intervention is a project-based research ethics curriculum that was designed to enhance the ability of science and engineering research laboratory members to engage in reason giving and interpersonal communication necessary for ethical practice. The randomized trial was fielded in active faculty-led laboratories at two US research-intensive institutions. Here, we show that laboratory members perceived improvements in the quality of discourse on research ethics within their laboratories and enhanced awareness of the relevance and reasons for that discourse for their work as measured by a survey administered over 4 mo after the intervention. This training represents a paradigm shift compared with more typical module-based or classroom ethics instruction that is divorced from the everyday workflow and practices within laboratories and is designed to cultivate a campus culture of ethical science and engineering research in the very work settings where laboratory members interact.

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Although much of the focus on responsible conduct in research has been defined by courses or online training, it is generally understood that this is less important than what happens in the research environment. On the assumption that providing faculty with tools and resources to address the ethical dimensions of the practice of research would be useful, a new workshop was convened ten times across seven academic institutions and at the annual meeting of a professional society. Workshops were attended by 91 faculty, 71 (78% response rate) of whom completed evaluations strongly supportive of the value of the workshop. Surveys of trainees identified by the faculty allowed for invitations to complete an online survey before and 6 months after the workshops, respectively resulting in response rates of 43 and 51%. Faculty and trainees were highly supportive of the feasibility, relevance, and effectiveness of the implementation by the faculty of one or more of the five strategies featured in the workshop. However, surprisingly over 70% of the trainees reported use of one or more of those strategies prior to faculty participation in the workshops. In sum, the workshops for faculty were successful, and the proposed strategies were deemed of value, but it is likely that the faculty voluntarily choosing to participate in these workshops were perhaps not surprisingly faculty who are already engaging in some of these strategies. This model is likely a useful adjunct to encouraging a culture of ethics, but it is not by itself sufficient to do so.

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Despite more than 25 years of a requirement for training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR), there is still little consensus about what such training should include, how it should be delivered, nor what constitutes "effectiveness" of such training. This lack of consensus on content, approaches and outcomes is evident in recent data showing high variability in the development and implementation of RCR instruction across universities and programs. If we accept that one of the primary aims of instruction in RCR/research ethics is "to foster a community of social responsibility" (Antes et al. 2009: 398), then it makes sense to consider the research environment itself-where learning one's science happens where one also engages in social interaction around that science. In order to take the best advantage of that already existing/naturally occurring research environment, the authors, through a deliberative, collaborative, and integrative process, crafted a workshop curriculum meant to arm research faculty with concrete and specific tools to effectively introduce research ethics in the context of the research environment.

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Requirements for training in responsible conduct of research have significantly increased over the past 25 years, despite the absence of evidence for a substantial impact. One of the challenges has been to choose among the many possible goals that might define outcomes. Although much of the focus of research has been on changes in knowledge or skills, a case can be made that attitudes and perceptions are at least as important. Based on a recently completed pilot study, the authors propose several areas for research to clarify not only what but also how attitudes and perceptions would be usefully assessed.

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BACKGROUND: Team science is advocated to speed the pace of scientific discovery, yet the goals of collaborative practice in nursing science and the responsibilities of nurse stakeholders are sparse and inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to examine nurse scientists' views on collaborative research as part of a larger study on standards of scientific conduct. METHODS: Web-based descriptive survey of nurse scientists randomly selected from 50 doctoral graduate programs in the United States. RESULTS: Nearly forty percent of nurse respondents were not able to identify good collaborative practices for the discipline; more than three quarters did not know of any published guidelines available to them. Successful research collaborations were challenged by different expectations of authorship and data ownership, lack of timeliness and communication, poorly defined roles and responsibilities, language barriers, and when they involve junior and senior faculty working together on a project. CONCLUSION: Individual and organizational standards, practices, and policies for collaborative research needs clarification within the discipline.

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Teaching of responsible conduct of research is largely predicated on the assumption that there are accepted standards of conduct that can be taught. However there is little evidence of consensus in the scientific community about such standards, at least for the practices of authorship, collaboration, and data management. To assess whether such differences in standards are based on disciplinary differences, a survey, described previously, addressing standards, practices, and perceptions about teaching and learning was distributed in November 2010 to US faculty from 50 graduate programs for the biomedical disciplines of microbiology, neuroscience, nursing, and psychology. Despite evidence of statistically significant differences across the four disciplines, actual differences were quite small. Stricter measures of effect size indicated practically significant disciplinary differences for fewer than 10% of the questions. This suggests that the variation in individual standards of practice within each discipline is at least as great as variation due to differences among disciplines. Therefore, the need for discipline-specific training may not be as important as sometimes thought.

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The practice of research is full of ethical challenges, many of which might be addressed through the teaching of responsible conduct of research (RCR). Although such training is increasingly required, there is no clear consensus about either the goals or content of an RCR curriculum. The present study was designed to assess community standards in three domains of research practice: authorship, collaboration, and data management. A survey, developed through advice from content matter experts, focus groups, and interviews, was distributed in November 2010 to U.S. faculty from 50 graduate programs for each of four different disciplines: microbiology, neuroscience, nursing, and psychology. The survey addressed practices and perceived standards, as well as perceptions about teaching and learning. Over 1,300 responses (response rate of 21 %) yielded statistically significant differences in responses to nearly all questions. However the magnitude of these differences was typically small, leaving little reason to argue for community consensus on standards. For nearly all questions asked, the clear finding was that there was nothing approaching consensus. These results may be useful not so much to teach what the standards are, but to increase student awareness of the diversity of those standards in reported practice.

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant requirement to provide training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) is now more than 20 years old. Implicit in the requirement is that this training will have an impact not only on what trainees know, but on what they know how to do. There is, however, a range of responses about what skills are seen to be necessary for the ethical practice of science. As part of a larger, earlier study examining RCR instructors' overall goals in teaching RCR, we asked 50 RCR instructors from 37 different institutions what their goals were for teaching skills in their RCR courses. The responses about what constituted necessary skills were wide ranging, from a focus on teaching the skill of ethical decision making to the perceived importance of ensuring that trainees understand the importance of the community in some research relationships. This diversity in responses about what skills should be taught in RCR courses is not especially surprising, given the variation in instructors, formats, instruction, goals, and outcome measures for RCR courses, but it does reinforce the necessity of giving more thought to what goals are to be achieved. This is true not only of skills to be learned, but of any other objectives one might have for research ethics teaching and learning.

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Advances in neuroscience continue to enhance understanding of the brain and provide new tools to take advantage of that understanding. These changes are poised to profoundly alter society. Given that the impact will be felt not only by neuroscientists, but by diverse members of society, it is imperative that conversations engage all stakeholders. Doing so will allow for the sharing of diverse views and perspectives to understand and frame the science, better educate and prepare the public for new developments, and provide a shared approach to identifying and resolving ethical challenges. These were the goals of Neuroethics Week, staged in 2007 by the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology in San Diego, and are the basis for the contributions to this special issue of Science and Engineering Ethics.

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Scientific developments take place in a socio-political context but scientists often ignore the ways their innovations will be both interpreted by the media and used by policy makers. In the rush to neuroscientific discovery important questions are overlooked, such as the ways: (1) the brain, environment and behavior are related; (2) biological changes are mediated by social organization; (3) institutional bias in the application of technical procedures ignores race, class and gender dimensions of society; (4) knowledge is used to the advantage of the powerful; and (5) its applications may reinforce existing structures of power that pose ethical questions about distributive justice. The case of crime, deception and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) shows the complexity, and the political and ethical challenges that confront those who seek to use neuroscience to explain the etiology of crime, and who base policy on its findings. An ethically grounded neuroscience needs to take account of existing structures of power and difference, and to develop a public neuropolitical consciousness that ensures that those subject to risk by the application of science and technology are participants in the decision-making processes involving the implementation of policies that affect them.

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While it may be useful to consider the development of new topics in teaching the responsible conduct of research (RCR), it is perhaps equally important to reconsider the traditionally taught core topic areas in both more nuanced and broader ways. This paper takes the topic of authorship as an example. Through the description of two specific cases from sociocultural anthropology, ideas about credit and responsibility are examined. It is suggested that placing more focus on the array of meanings found in the act of authoring might help students see themselves as part of a wider community both of scientists and beyond science.

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PURPOSE: To identify existing responsible conduct of research (RCR) instructors' goals for RCR education. METHOD: E-mail requests were sent to the 116 recipients of National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grants awarded in 2000. Contacts were successfully made with 92 of the recipients, and 84 (91%) identified one or more RCR instructors for their grants. Of the 115 named instructors, 67 were correctly identified as RCR instructors and responded to our e-mail messages. RESULTS: Of the 67 instructors, 50 (75%) from 37 different institutions were interviewed. The reported goals were diverse: over 50 distinct goals were volunteered by the instructors. A secondary finding is that, despite having been identified by training grant directors as teachers of required RCR courses, nearly 25% of these individuals reported that they were not actually RCR instructors, and 22% of those interviewed were not aware that NIH trainees were required to take their courses. Further, whereas 80% of the respondents reported that RCR instruction was required for individuals other than NIH trainees, only 1 of the 50 reported that her/his course was required for all researchers within the institution. CONCLUSIONS: Identifying effective strategies for RCR education depends on first defining measurable outcomes based on well-defined goals. The findings of this study suggest a lack of consensus about those goals. In addition, the confusion about who teaches RCR courses and the rare expectation that RCR education is required for all researchers are disappointing reminders that RCR education is not universally viewed as central to research.

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OBJECTIVE: Policymakers, federal agencies, and researchers have called for more in-depth investigation of contextual mechanisms that may explain differences in medication use among youths with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHOD: We conducted qualitative interviews with 28 families from varied socioeconomic and racial/ethnic and linguistic backgrounds regarding diagnostic and treatment trajectories for their children with symptoms consistent with ADHD, with a particular focus on whether and how medication use became a part of the trajectory. RESULTS: Four longitudinal patterns of help-seeking trajectories emerged: (1) a pattern characterized by delay to diagnosis, common among youths with complicated clinical and/or environmental pictures or primarily inattentive ADHD symptoms; (2) an initial nonmedication treatment pattern in which parents at first chose to use other modalities of treatment; (3) a reluctant receipt of an ADHD diagnosis and/or treatment pattern, mainly seen among the low-income, Spanish-speaking families; and (4) a rapid engagement in medication use pattern, characterized by directed movement to and maintenance of medication use. These patterns resulted from a dynamic interplay of explanatory models regarding the cause, course, and cure of a child's problems; the influence of extended social networks; and factors previously examined in medical utilization models. Additional themes included (1) parents' need for more information about ADHD, (2) families' desire for additional mental health and school services making medications less necessary, and (3) the importance of cultural sensitivity and a longitudinal relationship between the caregiver and clinician to enhance communication between families and clinicians. CONCLUSIONS: These findings deserve further study in a larger, more diverse sample.

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EDUCATION IN RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH (RCR) has been a required part of training for students on U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grants for over 15 years. However, there is little evidence of commonly accepted goals for RCR instruction, making it difficult to assess effectiveness. As part of a larger study examining RCR instructors' goals for RCR education, this report focuses on those reported goals categorized as knowledge. To identify RCR instructors, e-mail requests were sent to the 116 recipients of NIH training grants awarded in 2000. Of 67 verified RCR instructors, 50 (75% response rate) from 37 different institutions were successfully interviewed. Despite a shared sense of the basics to be taught in RCR courses, these instructors were diverse in their views and understanding of goals for RCR education. This diversity suggests a challenge to be overcome not only for improving the effectiveness of RCR education, but also for attempts to assess that effectiveness.

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Responsible conduct of research (RCR) courses are widely taught, but little is known about the purposes or effectiveness of such courses. As one way to assess the purposes of these courses, students were surveyed about their perspectives after recent completion of one of eleven different research ethics courses at ten different institutions. Participants (undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty, staff and researchers) enrolled in RCR courses in spring and fall of 2003 received a voluntary, anonymous survey from their instructors at the completion of the course. Responses were received from 268 participants. Seventy-seven percent of open-ended responses listed specific kinds of information learned; only a few respondents talked about changes in skills or attitudes. The perception that courses did more to provide information than to foster skills or attitudes was verified in quantitative responses (P<0.0001). Over 75% of the respondents specifically noted that courses were useful in preparing them to recognize, avoid, and respond to research misconduct. The two principal findings of this multi-institutional study are that respondents reported: (1) a wide variety of positive outcomes for research ethics courses, but that (2) the impact on knowledge was greater than that for changes in skills or attitudes.

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Despite pervasive calls for increased collaboration between researchers and practitioners, there has been limited research on research-practice partnership in mental health. This qualitative study describes one research-practice partnership that supports a study of community-based psychotherapy for children and families. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with all 12 participants (six Researchers and six Practitioners) to elicit perceptions of the collaborative process, including (a) attitudes and experiences entering into the collaboration, (b) perceived challenges and benefits, and (c) suggestions for improvements in future efforts. The findings reinforce the central role of communication and trust-building in developing effective collaborations and exchanging knowledge.

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OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the feasibility of the San Diego Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Project (SANDAP) protocol, a pediatric community-initiated quality improvement effort to foster implementation of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnostic guidelines, and to identify any additional barriers to providing evidence-based ADHD evaluative care. METHODS: Seven research-naïve primary care offices in the San Diego area were recruited to participate. Offices were trained in the SANDAP protocol, which included 1) physician education, 2) a standardized assessment packet for parents and teachers, 3) an ADHD coordinator to assist in collection and collation of the assessment packet components, 4) educational materials for clinicians, parents, and teachers, in the form of handouts and a website, and 5) flowcharts delineating local paths for referral to medical subspecialists, mental health practitioners, and school-based professionals. The assessment packet included the parent and teacher versions of the Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Rating Scales. In this study, we chose a conservative interpretation of the AAP ADHD guidelines for diagnosing ADHD, requiring that a child met criteria for ADHD on both the parent and teacher rating scales. A mixed-method analytic strategy was used to address feasibility and barriers, including quantitative surveys with parents and teachers and qualitative debriefing sessions conducted an average of 3 times per year with pediatricians and office staff members. RESULTS: Between December 2000 and April 2003, 159 children were consecutively enrolled for evaluation of school and/or behavioral problems. Clinically, only 44% of the children met criteria for ADHD on both the parent and teacher scales, and 73.5% of those children were categorized as having the combined subtype. More than 40% of the subjects demonstrated discrepant results on the Vanderbilt scales, with only the parent or teacher endorsing sufficient symptoms to meet the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. Other mental health and learning problems were common in the sample; 58.5% of subjects met screening criteria for oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder, 32.7% met screening criteria for anxiety/depression, and approximately one-third had an active individualized education program in place or had received an individualized education program in the past. On evaluation, the SANDAP protocol was acceptable and feasible for all stakeholders. However, additional barriers to implementing the AAP ADHD guidelines were identified, including 1) limited information in the guidelines regarding the use of specific ADHD rating scales, the evaluation and treatment of children with discrepant and/or negative results, and the indications for psychologic evaluation of learning problems, 2) families' need for education regarding ADHD and support, 3) characteristics of physical health and mental health plans that limited care for children with ADHD, and 4) limited knowledge and use of potential community resources. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that children presenting for evaluation of possible ADHD in primary care offices have complex clinical characteristics. Providers need mechanisms for implementing the ADHD diagnostic guidelines that address the physician education and delivery system design aspects of care that were developed in the SANDAP protocol. Additional barriers were also identified. Careful attention to these factors will be necessary to ensure the sustained provision of quality care for children with ADHD in primary care settings.

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The authors evaluated the effort of New Jersey jails to plan for the postrelease treatment needs of inmates with mental illness compared with inmates with heart disease and HIV infection or AIDS. Seventy percent of interviewees expressed a belief that release planning for persons with serious mental illness is very or extremely important. However, virtually all the jails reported providing "no real release planning." A majority of the jails provide aftercare plans for fewer than 10 percent of inmates with serious mental illness. A lack of release planning was noted for the other chronic conditions. Release planning for particular chronic problems is most common and complete in facilities with special treatment programs, such as a mental health unit.

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