U of Illinois Launches Ethics CORE

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has officially launched Ethics CORE (NationalEthicsCenter.org), an online resource for education in research ethics.

The press release explains:

(URBANA, Ill.) -- The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has announced the formal launch of an interactive online resource to help researchers and professionals in the sciences, engineering and mathematics incorporate ethical practices into their professional lives.

Ethics CORE (NationalEthicsCenter.org), funded by the National Science Foundation, gathers and disseminates ethics resources, including educational curricula and online courses, reference materials, scholarly and research literature and resources available for use in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) education required by NSF and other funders of research. In addition, the site’s interactive community offers a place where users can publish and share scholarship, discuss ethics-related issues for professionals and researchers and develop and share new course offerings.

“From the outset, our goal has been to create a dynamic, one-stop environment where people can collaborate and discuss ethical questions and issues that arise on a daily basis,” said C. K. Gunsalus, director of the National Center for Professional & Research Ethics, which has developed Ethics CORE. NCPRE is part of the University of Illinois’ Coordinated Science Laboratory.

“Ethics CORE aims to help people seamlessly integrate ethics into their daily behavior by providing a toolbox of resources to meet their varied needs,” she said

Ethics CORE resources available for open use include:
• 5,400 full-text articles and reports
• 250,000 peer-reviewed journal articles
• A full-text search capability for more than 45 professional society codes of ethics
• More than 250 catalogued and indexed RCR instructional and support materials sites with drill-down limit and search capabilities

A beta version of the site, which launched in 2011, has already attracted nearly 900 registered users from across the world.

Users are encouraged to share resources that they have developed, and researchers from around the country have contributed everything from videos to role-acting activities. An additional 300 people at a range of institutions are taking specialized RCR courses developed at the University of Washington. In addition, instructors at Arizona State University and Rochester Institute of Technology have taught a multi-institution suite of courses on sustainability ethics using custom multi-user games and simulation exercises that have all been deposited on the Ethics CORE site.