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The ethical decision making of researchers has historically been studied from an individualistic perspective. However, researchers rarely work alone, and they typically experience ethical dilemmas in a team context. In this mixed-methods study, 67 scientists and engineers working at a public R1 (very high research activity) university in the United States responded to a survey that asked whether they had experienced or observed an ethical dilemma while working in a research team. Among these, 30 respondents agreed to be interviewed about their experiences using a think-aloud protocol. A total of 40 unique ethical incidents were collected across these interviews. Qualitative data from interview transcripts were then systematically content-analyzed by multiple independent judges to quantify the overall ethicality of team decisions as well as several team characteristics, decision processes, and situational factors. The results demonstrated that team formalistic orientation, ethical championing, and the use of ethical decision strategies were all positively related to the overall ethicality of team decisions. Additionally, the relationship between ethical championing and overall team decision ethicality was moderated by psychological safety and moral intensity. Implications for future research and practice are discussed., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Problem: When medical students with disabilities fail, identifying the underlying cause is challenging. Faculty unfamiliar with disability-related barriers or accommodations may falsely attribute academic struggles to disability. Fear of legal action may prompt inappropriate promotion of students with disabilities who are struggling to meet competencies. Therefore, a clear understanding of the origin of difficulty is critical to determining an appropriate response to the student's failure, including revision of accommodations, academic remediation, probation, and dismissal., Approach: A large Midwestern medical college created an innovative approach to differentiate between disability-related barriers and academic deficits by creating a diagnostic objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). The goal of this OSCE was to determine the need for additional or refined accommodations versus clinical remediation, and to guide future decision making about a student on academic probation. Using 3 simulated cases that drew on a cross section of clinical knowledge, a team of clinical and disability specialists observed a disabled student to determine the origin of that student's difficulties in a clinical rotation., Outcomes: Using the diagnostic OSCE, the team quickly identified clinical reasoning and fund of knowledge deficits, and need for further accommodations. As a result, the team was able to remediate the clinical deficits, augment the current accommodations in vivo, and determine the potential impact on performance. The team approach was documented and facilitated the legally required interactive process for determining additional barriers, efficacy of existing accommodations, and need for additional reasonable accommodations. All parties reported a positive experience. The collective knowledge and expertise of the team helped confirm the origin of the deficit: a fundamental lack of knowledge and reasoning skills versus a disability-related barrier., Next Steps: The next step is to formalize this process to ensure appropriate evaluation of students with disabilities., (Copyright © 2020 by the Association of American Medical Colleges.)

The exclusion of Blacks/African-Americans, Latinx/Hispanics, and Indigenous people from science has resulted in their underrepresentation in the biomedical workforce, especially in academia. Faculty diversity at academic institutions is unacceptably low (<6%) and has remained unchanged in the past 20 years. Despite low representation, faculty of color are disproportionately tasked with service to enhance diversity and inclusion of the academy, often to the detriment of their research and academic success. This essay offers a perspective on the undue burden of service placed on underrepresented faculty to achieve institutional diversity and inclusion. I reflect on the challenges that faculty of color face trying to maintain a competitive research program while serving the needs of the academy, often in a capacity greater than that of their well-represented peers. I also discuss opportunities for faculty of color to leverage related diversity and inclusion work to boost their career progression and academic advancement.

Despite the recognized benefits of diversity and the decades of programs targeted at increasing diversity in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine, the underrepresentation of historically excluded groups continues due to persisting systemic inequalities. It is imperative that we reassess our current recruitment strategies and reimagine our campus and workplace environments to provide an inclusive and equitable culture that is free of institutional barriers, affording equal opportunities for each individual to succeed, thrive, and be their whole self. For too long this vision has been the fight of a heroic few, but it must become the fight of all in order to achieve true change. I am working toward, and look forward to, a future where contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion is fully integrated into the core mission of our institutions and is an expectation for all of us.

Institutions of higher learning are critical in promoting a knowledge-driven economy through research and training. Nepali universities receive funding from the University Grants Commission, Nepal (UGC-N) to support for impactful research. UGC-N requires grantees to publish research results as journal articles. We reviewed papers published through UGC-N funded research projects over a 10-year period (2008-2018) to assess the trends of article publication in terms of frequency and quality (based on journal impact factor and SCImago journal ranking). At most, 17% projects (n = 325) had publications and the majority of articles were published in journals that had neither SJR rank (74%, n = 240) nor impact factor (86%, n = 279). Most importantly, 10% of articles (n = 23) published in the non-ranked journals appeared in predatory journals. Although there were increasing trends of grants and research article publications in the last 10 years, journal-level quality metrics showed no improvements and suggested decreasing trends during the last half decade. The publication output varied among grant categories. Master research grants and PhD research grants performed better than those of faculty research grants in terms of publication in quality journals. We call for an increased commitment from political and academic leadership to promote quality research in Nepal.

Academic dishonesty is a common problem at universities around the world, leading to undesirable consequences for both students and the education system. To effectively address this problem, it is necessary to identify specific predispositions that promote cheating. In Polish undergraduate students (N = 390), we examined the role of psychopathy, achievement goals, and self-efficacy as predictors of academic dishonesty. We found that the disinhibition aspect of psychopathy and mastery-goal orientation predicted the frequency of students' academic dishonesty and mastery-goal orientation mediated the relationship between the disinhibition and meanness aspects of psychopathy and dishonesty. Furthermore, general self-efficacy moderated the indirect effect of disinhibition on academic dishonesty through mastery-goal orientation. The practical implications of the study include the identification of risk factors and potential mechanisms leading to students' dishonest behavior that can be used to plan personalized interventions to prevent or deal with academic dishonesty., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Mistreatment has been documented as a negative factor in the learning environment for the past 30 y but little progress has been made to determine an effective way to significantly improve these interactions. Faculty may also be victims of a hostile work environment as well, although frequency has not been well-measured or reported. In fact, it may be difficult to identify and address mistreatment and hostility in the work place within the commonly established surgical culture. Thus, efforts to define, identify, and address workplace mistreatment or hostility are crucial to the success of the academic surgical environment. This article summarizes presentations and panel discussion that took place at the 2019 Academic Surgical Congress organized by the Association for Academic Surgery and the Society of University Surgeons. Definitions of mistreatment and hostility were provided, as well as information regarding occurrence. Tools for addressing mistreatment in the work environment and tips for creating a positive environment were presented and discussed., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

There seems to be an awakening in Asia and the Middle East (ME) region in the fields of research and publication. In these regions, scholarship and research have not been keeping up with the technologically developed Western world. In response to this realization, governments are heavily investing in academia and rapid academic expansion and reforms are being made to gain a foothold in the academic and research arena. This has led academicians to clamber to publish, which, in turn, has led to issues of academic integrity and intellectual property. It is with this development in mind that the current paper examines the issue of academic integrity in Asia and the Middle East, presenting the challenges being confronted, and suggesting strategies that can be implemented.

Background: Dissection of human anatomic specimens still keeps its importance in medical curriculum. Experiences of medical students in the anatomy laboratory and the time they spent there makes them feel as doctors at the beginning of their education and helps them to get used to the notion of death. Unfortunately, the number of human body donors available for medical research and education as well as organ transplantation is limited. Obtaining human anatomic specimens continues being a great problem especially in middle-east countries. Religious factors, socioeconomic status, education, marital status or age are probably the main factors those effect body donations. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the attitudes of Turkish university employees and their relatives towards whole body donation and organ donation., Methods: A total of 780 questionnaires taken from the participants were evaluated. All the participants were academic and administrative staff from four different universities based in Ankara, Eskişehir, İstanbul and Adana and their relatives. Participants were between the ages of 18-85. All the subjects were provided a questionnaire composed of 38 questions., Findings: 26.2% of the individuals declared that they could donate their body for medical education while 73.8% of them did not. In contrast, 69.1% of the participants were willing for being organ donors. Of the ones who had accepted to donate their organs, 64.5% refused to donate their bodies., Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that not only whole body donation, but also organ donation continue being a problem in Turkey., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)

Integrity and trust are essential attributes of medical researchers. Research misconduct represents clear and present dangers to academic institutions and their faculty, residents, students, and staff. To achieve and maintain public trust, medical researchers must achieve and maintain research integrity. To do so requires synchronicity and collaboration between and within academic institutions. Substantial failures to maintain research integrity by institutional leadership will lead to increasing demands to do so from the funding organizations and the general public. This, in turn, will lead to avoidable consequences of substantial penalties, financial and otherwise, adverse publicity, and reputational damage. Researchers must self-regulate to avoid pitfalls, including those created by changes in the medical care delivery system that have decreased the influence of health care providers and increased the influence of outside legal and business interests. Our common goal should be to return public trust in our research enterprise that has done so much good for so many, but requires the establishment and maintenance of vigilance to establish and maintain research integrity., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Research ethics regulation in parts of the Global North has sometimes been initiated in the face of biomedical scandal. More recently, developing and recently developed countries have had additional reasons to regulate, doing so to attract international clinical trials and American research funding, publish in international journals, or to respond to broader social changes. In Taiwan, biomedical research ethics policy based on 'principlism' and committee-based review were imported from the United States. Professionalisation of research ethics displaced other longer-standing ways of conceiving ethics connected with Taiwanese cultural traditions. Subsequently, the model and its discursive practices were extended to other disciplines. Regulation was also shaped by decolonizing discourses associated with asserting Indigenous peoples' rights. Locating research ethics regulation within the language and practices of public policy formation and transfer as well as decolonization, allows analysis to move beyond the self-referential and attend to the social, economic and political context within which regulation operates., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The movements to teach the responsible conduct of research (RCR) and engineering ethics at technological universities are often unacknowledged aspects of the ethics across the curriculum (EAC) movement and could benefit from explicit alliances with it. Remarkably, however, not nearly as much scholarly attention has been devoted to EAC as to RCR or to engineering ethics, and RCR and engineering ethics educational efforts are not always presented as facets of EAC. The emergence of EAC efforts at two different institutions-the Illinois Institute of Technology and Utah Valley University (UVU)-provide counter examples. The remarkably successful UVU initiative gave birth to EAC as a scholarly movement and to the associated Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum. EAC initiatives at the Colorado School of Mines, however, point up continuing institutional resistances to EAC. Finally, comparative reflection on successes and failures can draw some lessons for the future. One suggestion is that increasing demands for accountability and pedagogical research into what works in teaching and learning offers special opportunities.

Financial relationships in academic research can create institutional conflicts of interest (COIs) because the financial interests of the institution or institutional officials may inappropriately influence decision-making. Strategies for dealing with institutional COIs include establishing institutional COI committees that involve the board of trustees in conflict review and management, developing policies that shield institutional decisions from inappropriate influences, and establishing private foundations that are independent of the institution to own stock and intellectual property and to provide capital to start-up companies.

A powerful set of projections has constructed post-apartheid higher education in South Africa. Among these is the expectation that technikons (institutions similar to the British polytechnics) would become universities of technology, with a mission to drive the technology of national reconstruction and development. In this paper, one of the new universities of technology serves as a case study to explore organizational structure and to highlight the ethics of university management and leadership. Building a new university provides the opportunity to place ethics "upfront", rather than as an afterthought, by constructing an organizational framework that makes ethical issues integral to management and decision-making processes. In imagining the structure of a university of technology, the authors were inspired by future scripting methods developed by Bastiaan De Laat, and by Duncan Den Boer, Arie Rip and Sandra Speller. The research process firstly involved the identification of themes related to values and ethics through an analysis of the environment. These themes were incorporated into three scenarios of possible futures for this new university type. Using these scenarios, the ethical issues that emerged (according to how the university of technology might choose to organise itself), are compared with the original themes. Conclusions are then drawn with regard to management structures that are hierarchical and entrench compliance, or that are traditionally collegiate and expertise-based, or that might enable mutual appreciation and allow for leaders to emerge within any functional space at a university of technology.

In Canada, all institutions that conduct publicly funded, animal-based research are expected to comply with the standards of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC). The CCAC promotes the use of animal alternatives, and uses the "3Rs" principles of Replacement, Reduction , and Refinement as a guiding ethical framework. To ensure these standards are strictly enforced, internal ethics committees at each institution are tasked with creating "Animal Use Protocol" (AUP) forms to be filled out by researchers and evaluated by the committees.In this paper, we assess AUP forms from Canada's top research universities to identify the extent to which they conform to, or advance, the 3Rs framework. Our results show various deficiencies that call into question the quality of information elicited by these forms. To remedy this, we recommend that the CCAC assume responsibility for creating a standardized 3Rs section to be used on all AUP forms. In addition, proposal forms and experimental results for all research at CCAC-certified institutions should be digitized and uploaded into a national database. We argue that this would offer higher quality information for researchers at the experimental design stage, while strengthening the CCAC's mandate to be accountable to the Canadian public.

Background: Cigarettes and their by-products (i.e., smoke; ash) are a complex, dynamic, and reactive mixture of around 5,000 chemicals. Cigarette smoking potentially harms nearly every organ of the human body, causes innumerable diseases, and impacts the health of smokers and those interacting with the smokers. Smoking brings greater health problems in the long-term like increased risk of stroke and brain damage. For students, peer pressure is one of the key factors contributing to cigarette smoking. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the impact of peer pressure on cigarette smoking among high school and university students in Ethiopia., Methods: An extensive search of key databases including Cochrane Library, PubMed, Google Scholar, Hinari, Embase and Science Direct was conducted to identify and access articles published on the prevalence of cigarette smoking by high school and university students in Ethiopia. The search period for articles was conducted from 21st September, 2018 to 25th December 25, 2018. All necessary data were extracted using a standardized data extraction checklist. Quality and risk of bias of studies were assessed using standardized tools. Heterogeneity between the included studies was assessed using Cochrane Q-test statistic and I2 test. To estimate the pooled prevalence of cigarette smoking, a random effects model was fitted. The impact of peer pressure on cigarette smoking was determined and was reported in Odds Ratio (OR) with 95% Confidence Interval (CI). Meta-analysis was conducted using Stata software., Results: From 175 searched articles, 19 studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria and were included in this study. The pooled prevalence of cigarette smoking among Ethiopian high school and university students was 15.9% (95% CI: 12.21, 19.63). Slightly higher prevalence of cigarette smoking was noted among university students [17.35% (95% CI: 13.21, 21.49)] as compared to high school students [12.77% (95% CI: 6.72%, 18.82%)]. The current aggregated meta-analysis revealed that peer pressure had a significant influence on cigarette smoking (OR: 2.68 (95% CI: 2.37, 3.03)., Conclusion: More than one sixth of the high school and university students in Ethiopia smoke cigarette. Students who had peer pressure from their friends were more likely to smoke cigarette. Therefore, school-based intervention programs are needed to reduce the high prevalence of cigarette smoking among students in Ethiopia., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Plagiarism is one of the most severe academic integrity issues. This study examined students' knowledge of and attitudes towards plagiarism, tested their ability to recognize plagiarism, and explored the association of study levels and attendance in courses dealing with referencing rules and plagiarism with students' attitudes and knowledge. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted at the University of Split, comprising the students of all schools and study levels (n = 388). Overall, results indicate the students were not very familiar with referencing rules and did not perform well on either theoretical questions or practical examples. However, they demonstrated positive attitudes towards plagiarism avoidance as well as towards compliance with academic integrity with respect to the correct use of research publications. Students' self-reported attendance in courses dealing with referencing rules and plagiarism avoidance was not associated with their knowledge of and attitudes toward plagiarism. These findings are important for a general understanding of students' attitudes, and the relation of practical and theoretical knowledge of plagiarism. Furthermore, the academic community addresses plagiarism not only as an ethical and regulatory violation but also as a direct consequence of a lack of knowledge, and of academic illiteracy. Study programs should be adjusted and long-term policies developed at all academic levels to promote a positive climate among students towards responsible academic writing.

The paper introduces and discusses the new players that now have a growing presence on the research scene, namely the entrepreneurial researcher and the entrepreneurial university. It also discusses the current scenario of the diffusion of scientific knowledge that presents increasing problems, with difficulty in publishing results and difficulties in accessing the results of published research. It also discusses the implications of the strategy of translational research and presents and discusses some relevant ethical challenges that result from the reorganization of the relationship between science and business. In particular, it deals with conflicts of interest and the results of excessive competition between scientists and institutions in a scenario of diminished public financial support for science.

The purpose of this study is to encourage and highlight discussion on how to improve the teaching of research ethics in institutions of higher education in Malaysia. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 21 academics in a research-intensive university in Malaysia, interviewees agreed on the importance of emphasizing the subject of research ethics among students, as well as academics or researchers. This study reveals that participants felt that there is an urgent need to improve the current awareness and knowledge of issues related to misconduct in research among students and academics. The results of this study indicate a need for better teaching on the subject of research ethics in order to prevent misconduct in research. Finally, it concludes with suggestions that there should be a clear definition of research misconduct, to include consequences when engaging in misconduct; a separate research ethics syllabus for pure and social sciences should be conducted; research ethics should be implemented as a core subject, and there should be an early intervention and continuous learning of research ethics, with an emphasis on ethics training.

The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine has conducted an annual Anatomical Donor Luncheon where families of the anatomical donors met anatomy dissection groups of medical students. The luncheon presented an opportunity for donor family members to share the life story of their loved one with the medical students prior to the start of the anatomy course. This study was designed to understand the impact of the Anatomical Donor Luncheon on families of the donors. Seven families in two different focus groups were included to explore the reactions and attitudes of the donor families to meeting the medical students. Conversations were digitally recorded and transcribed. Qualitative analysis of textual data were coded by three investigators using the Constant Comparative Method. To provide evidence of validity, a form of member checking was utilized. For further triangulation, an analyst not involved in conducting the focus groups or analyzing the data, re-coded all data. This analyst used categories and themes identified by the original analysts, ensuring validity of the themes and any negative cases (data not supporting or contradictory of the established categories and themes). One meta-theme and three sub-themes were identified. The meta-theme was Donor Family Participants Experience Transformation and Closure, and sub-themes were Motivators for Participation, Optimal Venue Factors, and Optimal Medical Student-Anatomical Donor Family Interactions. Study findings indicated the Anatomical Donor Luncheon facilitated closure on the death of their loved one, and transformed their apprehension about the luncheon and body donation into an attitude of gratitude and appreciation., (© 2019 American Association of Anatomists.)

Around the world, the recent introduction of assisted death laws has meant that undertaking medical assistance in dying (MAID) is now an option for some persons wishing to end their life. Some of these people donate their bodies to medical science, and by doing so have created a new route from which donor programs can now receive bodies. Such donations have also illuminated a myriad of novel ethical questions. This article considers the emotive and controversial topic of MAID in relation to body donation, describing the experiences of McMaster University, Canada, where several MAID body donors have been received by the anatomical donor program. It provides background on the development and implementation of MAID in Canada, and describes the experience of staff and students at McMaster to MAID donations. It also explores the relevance of MAID to body donation programs, and discusses several of the ethical challenges facing body donation programs who may encounter MAID body donors. These include the appropriateness of accepting MAID donors, issues with informed consent, the effect of personal engagement with MAID donors, information sharing around MAID donations, governance issues, and negative historical parallels between MAID and euthanasia. Suggestions on how to manage MAID body donation focus on how issues affecting institutions, faculty, and students may be approached utilizing appropriate transparency and communication, some of which may facilitate student professional development around the topic of MAID. It is also suggested that the development of ethically appropriate guidelines on MAID body donations may positively guide the anatomical community., (© 2019 American Association of Anatomists.)

Background: Scientific researchers are expected to follow the professional norms in their own domain. With a growing number of scientific publications retracted and research misconduct cases revealed in recent years, Chinese biomedical research integrity is questioned. As institutions educating and training future researchers, universities and the guidance they provide are important for the research quality and integrity of the country. Therefore, through a review of the guidance and policy documents on research integrity in Chinese universities, this work aims to investigate how the professional norms are specified in these documents., Methods: After a stratified sampling, 53 universities were selected. Their guidance and policy documents on research integrity were collected via a web search of their official websites. The search was confirmed by these universities. Then the content of all the collected documents were analyzed using inductive content analysis., Results: 118 active university documents were collected and analyzed. Most of the Chinese universities we investigated had their own guidance or policy on research integrity. They listed principles or examples of desired and undesired academic practices, investigation procedures and punishments of academic misconduct, and put forward measures to promote research integrity. Differences on specific practices and principles were observed between university groups and with European university documents., Conclusion: Despite the discrepancy they have, all these documents were designed to promote research integrity and cultivate a good research environment in Chinese biomedical domain. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement, for example, through more consultation of international guidance., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Ethics regulation for human-subject research (HSR) has been established for about 20 years in Brazil. However, compliance with this regulation is controversial for non-biomedical sciences, particularly for human and social sciences (HSS), the source of a recent debate at the National Commission for Research Ethics. We hypothesized that for these fields, formal requirements for compliance with HSR regulation in graduate programs, responsible for the greatest share of Brazilian science, would be small in number. We analyzed institutional documents (collected from June 2014 to May 2015) from 171 graduate programs at six prestigious Brazilian universities in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the states that fund most of the science conducted in Brazil. Among these programs, 149 were in HSS. The results suggest that non-compliance with standard regulation seems to be the rule in most of these programs. The data may reflect not only a resistance from scientists in these fields to comply with standard regulations for ethics in HSR but also a disciplinary tradition that seems prevalent when it comes to research ethics in HSR. However, recent encounters between Brazilian biomedical and non-biomedical scientists for debates over ethics in HSR point to a changing culture in the approach to research ethics in the country.

We determined the prevailing ethical climate at three different schools of a single university, in order to explore possible differences in the ethical climate related to different research fields: the School of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Naval Architecture; the School of Humanities and Social Sciences; and the School of Medicine. We used the Ethical Climate Questionnaire to survey the staff (teachers and administration) at the three schools, and used the research integrity and organizational climate (RIOC) survey for early-stage researchers at the three schools. The dominant ethical climate type perceived collectively at the three university schools (response rate 49%, n = 294) was Laws and professional codes, which is associated with the cosmopolitan level of analysis and the ethical construct of principle. Individually, the same climate predominated at the schools for engineering and humanities, but the School of Medicine had the Self-interest ethical climate, which is associated with the individual level of analysis and the egoism ethical construct. In the RIOC survey (response rate 85%; n = 70), early-stage researchers from the three university schools did not differ in their perceptions of the organizational research integrity climate, or in their perceived individual, group or organizational pressures. Our study is the first, to the best of our knowledge, to show differences in perceived ethical climate at a medical school compared to other schools at a university. Further studies are needed to explore the reasons for these differences and how they translate to organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, commitment to the institution and dysfunctional behaviour, including research misconduct.

This article reviews research on sexual harassment, particularly that pertaining to academia, to understand its underlying causes. Arguing that sexual harassment is an ethical issue, we draw on the field of behavioral ethics to structure our review. We first review ethical climate antecedents at the individual, leader, organizational, and environmental levels and examine their effects on both the occurrence of and responses to sexually harassing behaviors. This discussion is followed by an exploration of research that speaks to the cognitive processes of bounded ethicality-including ethical fading, motivated blindness, and the slippery slope-and their role in facilitating and perpetuating sexual harassment. We conclude by highlighting the value to be gained from integrating research on sexual harassment with research on behavioral ethics and identifying several practical steps that can be taken to curb sexual harassment in academia.

Objective: To understand the frequency and nature of postinterview communication as it relates to the rules and regulations of the American Urological Association Urology Residency Match, as well as the impact of such communication on the outcomes of the match., Methods: An anonymous, electronic survey questionnaire was sent to all applicants to a single urology residency training program during the 2017 American Urological Association match cycle. The survey was administered 1 month after the release of match results and queried applicants regarding their experiences with postinterview communication., Results: Of 231 surveys sent, 78 were returned completed for a 34% response rate. Among respondents, 47 (60%) reported receiving postinterview communication from at least one residency program, 20 (26%) were asked to reveal where they would be ranking a program on their rank list, and 15 (19%) reported that postinterview communication caused them to rank a program higher than initially planned, or to keep the program ranked at #1 if currently ranked there. Postinterview communication via telephone was associated with significantly increased odds of matching at the contacting program (odds ratio 20.0, 95% confidence interval 2.12-188.66, P = 0.003)., Conclusion: Postinterview communication between applicants and urology residency programs is prevalent, with numerous violations of the rules of the match. Prohibited communication may impact the rank lists of urology applicants., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Objective: To assess the incidence of violations to the National Resident Matching Program Code of Conduct during the Urology Match., Materials and Methods: We sent a survey to all 285 applicants to a single urologic program during 2017 Match cycle; the questions pertained to illegal interview questions, postinterview communication, second-look qualifications, and the applicant's perceived impact of these factors., Results: At total of 166 responses were obtained (response rate 58%). Ninety-six (58%) applicants received follow-up communication from at least 1 program, the majority from multiple programs. Of those who received postinterview communication, 13% reported verbal communication, and 19% felt misled by communication to believe they had a higher chance of matching at a program. Fifty (30%) respondents did a second-look visit, and 44% reported feeling obligated to do so in order to match. Finally, 141 of 166 (85%) applicants reported being asked illegal questions regarding personal life, rank list, and/or other interviews. Female applicants reported being asked illegal questions significantly more frequently than male applicants (P < .01)., Conclusion: During the 2017 Urology Match, a high proportion of applicants experienced violations of the National Resident Matching Program Code of Conduct. Violations included illegal questions, postinterview written and verbal communication, and pressure to do second-look visits. These findings corroborate numerous anecdotal reports, and may provide the groundwork to improve the fairness of the residency application process for the future., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

When legal challenges to research confidentiality arise, researchers are expected to resist while the institutions that approve their research provide legal support to enable that resistance. Although researchers have done their part, university administrators have been much less consistent doing theirs. Canada's federal policy now affirms university administrations "must" provide independent legal representation and "encourages" them to develop policies that articulate how they will do so. A national survey of Research Ethics Board (REB) Chairs and administrators found only one such policy, which turned our attention to factors that impeded creation of others like it. Administrative inertia, a lack of clear lines of responsibility, and resource issues top the list of justifications respondents offered. Implications for researchers, REBs, and university administrators are discussed.

Sociological studies of the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) occupations have documented the professionalisation strategies these groups use to establish boundaries between themselves and their competitors, including seeking educational accreditation and statutory regulation/licensure. Chiropractic has been particularly successful at professionalising and in Australia and the UK it is taught within public universities. Recent events have threatened chiropractic's university foothold, however, showing that professionalisation needs to be understood as an ongoing process of negotiation. Based on interviews with chiropractors in Australia and the UK, this paper examines the professionalisation strategies deployed by chiropractors within and outside of the university. Highly divergent strategies are identified across different sectors of the profession, relating to defining the chiropractic paradigm, directing education and constructing professional identity. In each domain, chiropractic academics tended to prioritise building the evidence base and becoming more aligned with medicine and other allied health professions. Although some practitioners supported this agenda, others strove to preserve chiropractic's vitalistic philosophy and professional distinction. Following Bourdieu, these intra-professional struggles are interpreted as occurring within a field in which chiropractors compete for different forms of capital, pulled by two opposing poles. The differing orientations and strategies pursued at the two poles of the field point to a number of possible futures for this CAM profession, including a potential split within the profession itself., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

When there have been substantial failures by institutional leadership in their oversight responsibility to protect research integrity, the public should demand that these be recognized and addressed by the institution itself, or the funding bodies. This commentary discusses a case of research failures in developing genomic predictors for cancer risk assessment and treatment at a leading university. In its review of this case, the Office of Research Integrity, an agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services, focused their report entirely on one individual faculty member and made no comment on the institution's responsibility and its failure to provide adequate oversight and investigation. These actions missed an important opportunity to emphasize the institution's critical responsibilities in oversight of research integrity and the importance of institutional transparency and accountability.