Research Ethics : Education from the View of a Junior

As a new faculty member, I find it very clear what the senior faculty in my department think I should be doing with my time: the activities necessary to earn tenure. And if something doesn’t contribute to earning tenure, I shouldn’t be doing it. We have tenure criteria that are much more clear and explicit than many departments seem to have. In many respects, this is very positive. I know exactly what activities I am supposed to spend my time on, and I always have a clear notion of where I stand with respect to the tenure criteria. The limitation is that there may be worthwhile activities that are not covered by any of the criteria or their components, and it becomes difficult to justify engaging in these other activities. We have three required research criteria: a record of original published research, a positive independent assessment by external reviewers, and the demonstrated ability to sustain a high quality research program. There are two required teaching and educational activities: effective formal classroom teaching, and effective involvement in graduate research training. These criteria are further refined in annual review documents that identify specific activities that contribute to meeting the research and teaching criteria, with potential point values for each activity, leading to an annual evaluation score. This is set up so that there are a total of 60 points possible each year for research activities, and 20 points for teaching activities. None of the specified activities involve research ethics, or research ethics training. It is merely assumed that research will be conducted in accordance with normal ethical standards. One might think that there is some provision in the teaching criteria for activities related to research ethics training, but this is neither explicit, nor implicit. The measures by which effective involvement in graduate research training are evaluated