Research ethics survey

[JFRUGOLI at BIO.TAMU.EDU]

I have a rather unusual request, but I would appreciate a few minutes of 
your time (does this sound like a telemarketer?  Sorry!)

I participated in an NSF workshop last year on Teaching Research Ethics, 
and ended up as one of 5 participants in the workshop asked to give a 
presentation at the National Ethics Meeting in Washington, DC (funny 
place to talk about ethics!) in two weeks.  Each of us will discuss an 
aspect of research ethics covered in the original workshop. By luck of 
the draw, I ended up with mentor-student relationships.  One of the 
topics we talked about  during the workshop was the problem of sometimes 
conflicting  but unvoiced expectations between grad students, post-docs 
and PIs.  If you fall into any of these three categories, (and you don't 
have to be female to do this!) I would greatly appreciate it if you 
would take 10 minutes to fill out the following questionnaire to help me 
with my presentation. I realize that the replies will not be totally 
anonymous, but I will not use any names in my presentation.   If you 
wish to participate, please copy the message, type in your replies, and 
respond by next Monday February 24th.  Some of these questions may 
provoke interesting newsgroup discussion, so if you feel comfortable 
posting your replies to the newsgroup as a whole, go ahead.  Otherwise, 
just email back to me.  If anyone wants a synopsis of the responses, 
I'll be more than willing to post them AFTER the Ethics Meeting (time 
pressure is a bit intense right now).  And thanks in advance for those 
of you who give of your precious time!

1) Does a written description exist for your job?  Did you see it before 
you began the job?

2) Are there unwritten expectations  for your position?  Do they come 
from more than one source? Do any of them conflict with the written 
description, or are they all in addition to the written description?



Please answer the all following questions, whether you're a grad 
student, PI or post-doc.  Warning-they may be harder than they initially 
look!

3) What should the responsibilities of a PI to a grad student be?

4) What should the responsibilities of a PI to a post-doc be?

5) What are the responsibilities of a PI to the university?

6) What should to responsibilities of a grad student to a PI be?

7) What should the responsibilities of a post-doc to a PI be?


I am a (check one)
___grad student
___post-doc
___PI
Julia Frugoli
Dartmouth College

visiting grad student at
Texas A&M University
Department of Biological Sciences
College Station, TX 77843
409-845-0663
FAX 409-847-8805

"Evil is best defined as militant ignorance."
																										Dr. M. Scott Peck