2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The increased engagement of engineers in complex, interdisciplinary, and multi-institutional research networks poses new challenges to ethics and the responsible conduct of research (RCR). While there is extensive literature on engineering research ethics at the individual laboratory level (micro level) and the societal implications of engineering advances (macro level), little research has explored ethics at the meso-level where engineers work together in a collaborative research network.
Our work has extended the literature on engineering research ethics to specifically address the network level. We investigated the views of the members of a large Engineering Research Center (ERC) revealing five themes related to network ethics: (1) data sharing, (2) authorship or inventorship credit, (3) collaboration, (4) attention to ethics and regulation, and (5) network leadership. This work also revealed that ERC members saw a need to learn more about network ethics, with some calling for center-wide efforts to address network ethics.
Case studies are widely used in engineering ethics education. However, cases focusing on issues specific to research networks are less common. In this paper, we report on the development of four educational cases focusing on Sharing Data, Protocols & Technologies; Credit & Authorship; Ethics & Regulations; and Collaboration. To develop case studies that can easily be used by busy ERC researchers and trainees, we limited the description of each case to one or two pages. Each case presented a hypothetical situation posing ethical challenges intended to elicit discussion about different views and approaches to the issue. For example, in the Credit & Authorship case, researchers in two collaborating labs disagree about publication strategy. One researcher advocated moving rapidly to publish the early results, while the other would like to collect more data and publish a more comprehensive article in a high-impact journal. One of the researchers suggests publishing two separate articles; however, this raises concern that the early article will in effect “scoop” the later article, creating problems for the later article’s placement. Concerns are also raised about potential violation of journal rules on duplicative publication.
To pilot the case studies, we recruited volunteers from the 158 eligible ERC members (e.g., principal investigators; research scientists, engineers, medical researchers, postdoctoral trainees; and graduate students). Each pilot included participants from different institutions, disciplines, and ranks within the ERC. Following an IRB-approved protocol, we shared the case study with each participant in advance so they could read the scenario and associated questions. They then met for a one-hour Zoom discussion led by two of the project leaders. Immediately after the discussion, each participant completed an online survey eliciting their feedback.
Participant feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The survey results showed that participants found the cases interesting and relevant to the work of the ERC. They reported that the case discussions promoted intellectual engagement and discussion. These case studies are a tool that other research networks can use for accessible education on research ethics and RCR within a multi-institutional research network, a type of “big team” science networks that isa increasingly common in engineering.