Faculty Code – 8/17/2023 draft

Faculty Code – 8/17/2023 draft

Motivation:

The Department of Engineering Education (EED) at the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering (HWCOE) at the University of Florida (UF) specializes in the delivery of innovative and effective instructional methods in engineering undergraduate and graduate courses and assessment that is evidence-based. Both scholarships of teaching and learning and engineering education research span multiple domains of idea generation, knowledge-building, and dissemination. In other words, research and teaching practices are intertwined in this field.  

Students and faculty carry a richness of experiences, insights, and creativity that can introduce novel ideas and approaches to meaningfully transform engineering education. EED expects all its students and faculty to understand and uphold the ethical, moral, and behavioral elements of research and teaching, which must be informed by existing UF guidelines and best practices for academic and research integrity.  

Overview of General Principles for Misconduct and Integrity Violations 

Students and faculty are encouraged to read existing UF guidelines for general principles of misconduct and integrity violations, applicable to both courses and in research labs. In general, these include but are not limited to the following: 

  • Plagiarism: Concerns properly apportioning intellectual credit without crediting the other party. Plagiarism is a violation of academic norms and a matter of academic integrity but not illegal.
  • Copyright: Properly compensating someone for use of their property where such compensation is required by law (e.g. no exception such as fair use applies).
  • Failure to Disclose: Failing to disclose outside activities or financial interests, making incomplete disclosures of outside activities, or misrepresenting outside activities by individuals currently involved in research or potentially involved in future research.
  • Breach of Confidentiality: Taking or releasing the ideas or data of others by one with whom they were shared with an understanding or expectation of confidentiality. In courses, these include misappropriating ideas generated from student course projects, assignments, lectures, class discussions, and other related materials. In research, these include idea sharing in research meetings, conferences, disclosing or misappropriating ideas from others’ grant projects, awards, conferences, manuscripts, interpersonal or group discussions, and review processes.
  • Property violations:Stealing, tampering with, or destroying property of others, such as research papers, supplies, equipment, or products of research or scholarship.  
  • Failure to report observed research misconduct: Covering up or otherwise failing to report observed, suspected, or apparent research misconduct by others.
  • Retaliation:Taking adverse action against an individual for having reported alleged teaching or research misconduct or other deviations in integrity. 

Additional resources on principles for misconduct and integrity violations can be found at:  

Authorship

Authorship credit should reflect the individual’s contribution to the study. An author is considered anyone involved with initial research design, data collection and analysis, manuscript drafting, or final approval, although additional steps may be involved. However, the following do not necessarily qualify for authorship: providing funding or resources, mentorship, teaching, or contributing research but not helping with the publication itself or including all involved parties. The primary author assumes responsibility for the publication, making sure that the data are accurate, that all deserving authors have been credited, that all authors have given their approval to the final draft; and handles responses to inquiries after the manuscript is published.

With the intersection of teaching and research in Engineering Education it is important to clarify the roles of the course instructor (or co-instructors) versus students to ensure authorship and research ideas included in classrooms uphold research integrity guidelines for confidentiality and ownership of the creators. Since instructional practices are intimately connected to mentorship, students are highly dependent on faculty for mentoring, teaching, and research. As such, students are often placed in a position of lesser power and are vulnerable to exploitation (Fine & Kurdeck, 1993). Course instructors or co-instructors are expected to provide a safe space and conduct themselves ethically as students formulate ideas and gain knowledge without fear of exploitation, coercion, or retaliation.  At the same time, students also have a responsibility for this level of integrity too and both set clear expectations on the use of course content for authorship, proposals, or other research related matters.

The department upholds a strict ethical and professional expectation for all faculty and students participating in courses that may ignite research ideas or projects that connect research to teaching and vice versa. As such, if a faculty or a student wishes to use content created within a classroom (e.g. student submitted assignments, projects, discussions), or during informal learning activities (e.g., research seminars, lab meetings), the following guidelines should be considered:

  1. Contact the originator of the idea to assess the possibility of authorship. If the creator decides to not become an author, desist from pursuing this authorship venue or using ideas generated during your interactions. Like IRB-guidelines, it is the individual’s choice to engage in research. Students are the originators of the ideas in their completed course assignments, projects, discussion posts, etc. Faculty are the originators of ideas in their assignments and other course materials although they may still be subjected to fair use policies.
  2. If the creator agrees on pursuing authorship, co-create an authorship agreement scorecard with all involved parties (this may include other parties, if applicable). We have provided an example of this in our EED Lib Guide: Getting Started @ The Libraries – Engineering Education & Research – Guides @ UF at University of Florida (ufl.edu). If the topic involves research that overlaps with a faculty advisor or research project, include all potential authors in a collaborative discussion and co-creation of this scorecard.
  3. If content from the creator includes participant data that was not previously IRB-approved, all parties must ensure that they abide by UF IRB procedures and acquire necessary permissions (e.g., secondary data analysis) before proceeding with any dissemination of work. These practices must also be compliant with FERPA and HIPAA guidelines.

Some additional resources and guides have been included: