The Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity mentions five principles that are the basis of integrity in research: 1) Honesty, 2) Scrupulousness, 3) Transparency, 4) Independence, 5) Responsibility. These virtues of a good researcher should guide PhD students and their supervisors, principal investigators, research directors and managers towards the right choices in all kind of circumstances.
However, each scientist sometimes faces dilemmas. While the extremes of the spectrum – falsifying and fabricating data and plagiarism – are clearly very serious scientific misconducts, a wide range of research practices are in the “grey zone”. We will address these issues in our OOA course.

Course content
1. Interactive workshop. This workshop offers a general introduction into practices and challenges related to scientific integrity, with strong emphasis on situations that PhD students and postdocs might encounter. We will explain the relevant NKI-AVL rules and guidelines. We will discuss practical examples of various ethical dilemmas in our daily lives as scientists, and we will discuss additional questions that you might have related to research integrity.
Some of the topics that we will discuss:
– How honest are people, and scientists in particular?
– Code of conduct for scientists
– Real misconduct and the “grey zone”
– Understanding the forces that lead to scientific misconduct
– What to do if you doubt the integrity of a colleague or supervisor?
– Questionable research practices: what is allowed, what is not?
– (Self-)plagiarism
– Co-authorships
– Sharing of data, materials and ideas
– Conflicts of interest

 2. E-learning module. The online module provides you with a basic overview of your responsibilities. By the end of the module, you should be able to: 1) Know, understand and explain the key responsibilities you have as a researcher, 2) Identify the challenges you could face in meeting those responsibilities and 3) Be aware of strategies for dealing with pressures and difficult situations.

3. Assignment. In this final part we ask you to write an essay and to discuss this essay with your supervisor.