ATSC5018 Ethics and Research Methods

Overview 

ATSC 5018 is a graduate course that is designed to discuss ethics and ethical dilemmas in research and academia and how to address them are discussed. This course also covers general research methodology and describes processes for research funding and disseminating research findings and the peer-review process.

Goals and Objectives 

The overarching goal of this class is to provide a basic understanding of methods used in research and concepts of ethical dilemmas within a research setting. 

Specific objectives of this course are as follows:

• Describe some types of ethical dilemmas in research and discuss appropriate course of action.

• Investigate different research methods, describe how research is funded and disseminated.

• Provide introductions to all students on their individual research topics.

Topics 

The topics covered in this course include (subject to change):

• Research ethics

• Data management

• Funding and review processes

• Critical paper review discussion

• AI in research and writing

• Cognitive bias

Anonymous student feedback 

Fall 2025

Rate of the course overall: 3.67/5.0

Rate of the instructor overall: 5.0/5.0

• I thought that the course went well. I particularly enjoyed the lectures where we covered more of the behind the scenes of academia like the review process and how grant applications work. I think that those will be very useful going forward.

• Group discussion of topics presented in class was engaging.

• The group discussion was great! The only thing is the timing of the class. If possible, it would be great to have the class scheduled as 75 minutes instead of 50, so there is a better expectation of how long the class will take each week.