Final Project Progress Report

The current progress on the final project is proceeding into the final stages. The next few weeks I plan on creating the splash page and editing the manual to align more with the ethics of collaborative authorships, since the basis of the website is connecting and collaborating with one another on various research projects. Thus far I haven’t encountered any trouble, but I’m realizing there are a number of ethical challenges to consider when collaborating nationally or internationally (i.e. language barriers, cultural differences, what constitutes authorships, clarity of ethics & integrity, ownership of research, and ethical level of scientific misconduct).

While working on the final project I’ve learned the importance of understanding the ethics of collaborative authorships. When working with individuals’ cross-disciplines whether local, regional, national, and/or international; ethics and integrity, authorship, and publishing agreements are vital topics to discuss before initiating a research project, because there are a number of factors to consider beforehand.

The Importance of Collaborative Authorship

Authorship is an important topic especially in higher education. There are a number of collaborative projects occurring between students and faculty, at intuitions, so as a personal and social responsibility its best practice to have open conversations and negations before initiating research project(s) jointly.

Upfront conversations and negations provide everyone involved with a unified standard, expectations, and protection of intellectual property as well as assigning authorship credit on the final product. Having open conversations at the initial stage in the process also permits the ability to establish a blueprint to follow throughout the research process as well as stages to revisit should the plan be altered.

Final Project Proposal | Researcher's Meet Project

Brief Description
The plan is to develop a Research Ethics & Integrity Manual for a fictitious (fake) website "Researchers Meet". The website is a place for professionals, students, researchers, and non-professionals to join on a membership basis and collaborate as well as post and find research interests across the globe. The purpose of this fictitious site is to establish open dialogue/contribution in the sharing of global knowledge conversations. Also to aid assistance in collaboration, knowledge exchange, and increase attention on certain research areas.

Researchers are cross collaborating with individuals in other countries and states, the manual will serve as a source to aid individuals in ethically collaborating and to permit researchers the ability to remain salient in ethical issues, as well as avoid and resolve ethical impasses, while remaining authentic to their ethical obligations and social and professional responsibilities.

Why I Choose this Project
I selected this project for the reason that technology is rapidly evolving and our lives is becoming full to capacity with daily meetings, assignments, projects, family obligations, and personal commitments that we have less time to meet face-to-face to any further extent, so the main purpose of the website is to create a local, international, and global network of all types of researchers and provide fruitful collaborations across cultures, disciplines, and backgrounds. The website is a platform to interchange ideas, new developments, and discussions with other like minded researchers, students, professionals, and/or other non-professionals in the field.

Future Project Aspirations
The manual will also serve on a smaller scale to institutions or universities with a blueprint to establish the "Researchers Meet" website, which will assist as a campus collaboration locator to encourage collaborations across disciplines and departments within the institution. It will also serve as a tool for novice researchers to acquire the opportunity to connect, collaborate and create research with expert researchers as well as have a major role in the scientific progress, gain experience, and insight in the field not necessarily their own.

Connections to Academic Integrity
The connections to academic integrity will focus on ethics and integrity, copyright issues, the honor system, and authorship.

Final Product Plan
- Research Ethics & Integrity Manual
- One splash page of the fictitious website "Researchers Meet"

Why students cheat and plagiarize?

In viewing the interactive movie “The Lab”, the motive behind students cheating and plagiarizing results in various reasons, in which I concur. Students result to unethical violations for a multitude of reasons; succumb to pressures, cultural differences, lack of understanding material, and unrealistic expectations, but as an educator initiating conversations about cheating, authorship, falsification, plagiarism, and etc. have the possibility to teach students the appropriate ways to cite the work of others, practice ethical research standards, and avoid unethical standards.

The overarching goal as an educator is to educate students enough to prevent students from cheating and/or plagiarizing, encourage reporting unethical behaviors of others, and self-regulating their own behavior and setting high standards for themselves as well as others. I believe the explanation for the continuing increase in academic violations is from students’ ignorance surrounding the topic, the devoid of authentic, meaningful assignments, high academic expectations, and deficient planning.

As a preventive measure, the initial step should be to educate students on the topic, then emplace appropriate consequences for unethical behavior(s). According to McCabe, Trevino, & Butterfield (2001) indicate that students who have a negative perception of being caught, leads to a decrease in academic dishonesty. In conclusion, students should have ownership over their own learning, take responsibility for their own behavior(s), and be accountable for the selection of their choices and actions, so we as educators must first provide them with the tools so that they are able to make the appropriate decisions.

Reference: McCabe, D. L., Trevino, L. K., & Butterfield, K. D. (2001). Dishonesty in academic environments. Journal of Higher Education, 72(1), 29-45