INTEGRITY Erasmus Project

Project Title

INTEGRITY

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Ethics, religion and philosophy (incl. Inter-religious dialogue); ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Research misconduct compromises scientific integrity and diminishes public trust in science. Universities worldwide are increasingly aware of the need for safeguarding responsible conduct in research, as appears from the fact that many universities have endorsed a code of conduct, such as the European ALLEA Code.
Codes of conduct are helpful to inform students and researchers about responsible research practices, but without an implementation strategy, they are unlikely to change behaviour. Moreover, incentivising proper behaviour takes more than issuing rules and regulations. What is also needed, is an educational pathway for students on all levels of studies (Ba, Ma, PhD), to raise awareness of what codes of conduct and integrity in research entail. We have taken a positive approach towards responsible conduct in research, focusing on doing things right and on empowering students to act proactively and responsibly. They should learn to recognize problematic situations, discuss them with peers and supervisors, and devise strategies for dealing with them.

Utrecht University, Charles University Prague, and Ljubljana University participated as representatives of academic stakeholders in different geographical areas in Europe, Elevate Health as a specialist in online education design, and Academic Integrity Consulting as a specialist in communication on research integrity.

The project aimed:
1. to develop an educational pathway for students on all levels of study, to raise their awareness of what a code of conduct and responsible conduct of research entail, and to empower them to deal effectively with integrity issues.To this end, several SPOCs (small private online courses with moderation) and a MOOC (massive online open course) for students at the Ba, Ma, and PhD levels were created. A baseline tool for measuring the level of knowledge with respect to research integrity has been developed, as well as a competency profile for research integrity. The competency profile was used by the INTEGRITY team as the conceptual starting point for the development of the project’s courses.
2. to instruct teachers how to teach and moderate the courses. A teacher-training course for teaching responsible conduct of research has been created, tailored to online training. Elevate Health offers an online training course for moderating SPOCS.
3. to implement the courses in the curriculum of the partners, and possibly on a wider scale.The courses have been implemented by the partners, and the MOOC has been published online. All courses are available on the Lifelong Learning Platform of Utrecht University.

– Ljubljana University developed a competency profile for teaching and learning research integrity. It was published as a handbook presenting the key competencies that students from Ba to Ma to PhD level need to acquire to act with integrity. The handbook is freely available.
– Ljubljana University developed a BA SPOC on academic writing. It was run three times and is intended to be implemented as an elective course at LU. The Utrecht Humanities Faculty is considering its implementation as an elective.
– Charles University created a questionnaire to measure basic knowledge regarding research integrity on all three levels of study. This output will be implemented into special soft skill seminars for new students at CU.
– A Master-level SPOC on research integrity was developed by Charles University. It was run three times and its contents are available to any faculty for inclusion into their curricula.
– The PhD SPOC will be included into several study programs at Charles University. The MOOC was presented to the Rector Council, Academic Senate and faculties of CU and will be available for teaching research integrity at CU.
– At Utrecht University, a four-year educational pathway for all PhD students was created, with a SPOC as the first stage of this pathway. The SPOC was piloted and run three times. A programme for stages 2-4 of the pathway was developed in collaboration with the H2020 project ‘Integrity, Empowering Good Practice in Science’. The four-year pathway has been endorsed by the Board of Utrecht University. It will be taught, on a mandatory basis, to all 2400 PhD students.
– A MOOC was developed and made available online for students worldwide.
– The international peer-reviewed educational journal CEPS will publish a special issue on the results of the INTEGRITY project in 2023. For the CfP, see https://www.cepsj.si/index.php/cepsj/announcement/view/14
All courses developed within the INTEGRITY project are available for students or can be incorporated into existing courses. Whilst students or faculty members are looking for solutions for their individual needs, there are also department or university objectives that need a more impactful approach. To this end we have developed an Integrity toolkit which will help student outreach, from learning tools to university-wide events promoting integrity.

Project Website

https://integratingintegrity.org

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 332095 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT & Country: NL

Project Partners

• ELEVATE BV
• UNIVERZITA KARLOVA
• UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI
• Academic Integrity Consulting LTD