Institutional Transformation: Institutional Re-engineering Ethical Discourse in STEM (iREDS)

University Of California-Riverside, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award will fund a new campus initiative for the cultivation of ethical climates and practices in STEM research, using a novel online communications platform combined with a project-based training designed to be compatible with that platform. UC Riverside will deploy and evaluate this campus-wide interdisciplinary project, Institutional Re-engineering Ethical Discourse in STEM (iREDS), by examining the effects of two randomized interventions, separately and combined, and in comparison with a fourth control group receiving the standard ethics training that currently exists on campus. The project represents a paradigm shift from changing individuals' behavior through instruction, to cultivating a campus culture intended to emerge from intensive digital interaction amplified by ethics training introduced during laboratory projects. Broader Impacts of the deployment and evaluation of the interaction of two novel interventions include a model transferable to other institutions, a test bed at an Hispanic Serving Institute (HSI) in the midst of rapid research and student population growth (25% of incoming domestic PhD graduate students are underrepresented minorities), and the potential offer guidance to federal agencies regarding future Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) policy.