Engaging with research ethics and research integrity in
the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Intended audience
This workshop is aimed at Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) researchers,
research project and program managers, and research ethics advisors.
Learning outcomes
Participants will gain a basic knowledge of
 the Australian regulatory environment, including the National Statement and
Australian Code
 supporting resources
 how to explore ethical issues in SoTL research, and
 the problems SoTL researchers may encounter with research ethics and research
integrity.
Workshop description
The Scholarship of Learning and Teaching is a relatively young area of study and like many
emerging fields has been slow to develop discipline-specific reflection on the ethics of
research, research integrity and ways of engaging with the research ethics review process.
This omission has attracted comment in both the United States (Hutchings 2002; Wilson
2008) and Canada (Burman and Kleinsasser 2004; Stockley and Balkwill 2013).
There may be several reasons for this collective failure to engage. First, SoTL has limited
exposure in some countries to more intensive forms of research ethics review. Secondly,
some SoTL researchers enter the field from disciplines with little familiarity of human
research. Thirdly, principlist approaches to research ethics, the basis for most national and
international guidelines on research ethics, may prove particularly unhelpful when dealing
with the kinds of power relations that SoTL researchers regularly confront in the context of
higher education institutions (Israel 2015).
SoTL scholars also have to grapple with new forms of teaching and learning, changes in the
higher education landscape, emerging methodologies, as well as newer challenges faced by
any researcher dealing with matters such as: big data; internet-mediated research; humancomputer interaction; globalisation, and transnational networks. They may have to confront
these challenges with inadequate support from the broader SoTL enterprise, with little
experience in this form of human research, and in the face of limited relevant expertise within
research ethics review bodies.
This workshop has three aims. It
1. surveys major ethical principles and practices associated with the National Statement
and the Australian Code within the context of SoTL;
2. introduces and draws on resources tailored to SoTL, commissioned by the Australian
Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) and developed by Mark Israel,
Gary Allen and Colin Thomson that will be freely available on the Australian
Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) and the Australasian Human
Research Ethics Consultancy Services (AHRECS) websites; and
3. explores a series of hypothetical and real case studies of ethical issues in SoTL
research, inviting further commentary from attendees to be shared with the broader
SoTL community.
The workshop uses a mixture of small group engagement with case studies, large group
interactive discussion of more common and thornier ethical issues, and a collective process
for identifying future needs of the SoTL community and the role various organisations might
play in responding to these needs.
Burman, M.E. and Kleinsasser, A.M. (2004). Ethical guidelines for use of student work:
moving from teaching’s invisibility to inquiry’s visibility in the scholarship of teaching
and learning. The Journal of General Education, vol. 53(1), pp. 59-79.
Hutchings, P. (Ed.). (2002). Ethics of inquiry: Issues in the scholarship of teaching and
learning. Menlo Park, CA: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Stockley, D. and Balkwill, L-L. (2013). Raising Awareness of Research Ethics in SoTL: The
Role of Educational Developers. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning. vol. 4(1), Article 7. http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cjsotl_rcacea/vol4/iss1/7
Wilson, J.H. (2008). The value and ethics of the scholarship of teaching and learning. In S.A.
Meyers and J.R. Stowell (Eds.), Essays from excellence in teaching (Vol 8). Society for
the Teaching of Psychology. http://www.teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2008/eit0804.pdf (accessed 13 January 2014).
Facilitator biographies
Professor Mark Israel
The University of Western Australia, Perth, mark.israel@uwa.edu.au
Mark works in criminology, sociology, law and education. His books include Research
Ethics and Integrity for Social Scientists: Beyond Regulatory Compliance (Sage, 2015). Mark
was the Prime Minister’s Australian University Teacher of the Year in 2004, and has been a
Fellow and Discipline Scholar with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council
(predecessor of the Office for Learning and Teaching). He has undertaken consultancy for
State and Commonwealth governments, CSIRO, NGOs, higher education institutions in
Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, and for the European Research Council.
Dr Gary Allen
Griffith University, Nathan, g.allen@griffith.edu.au
Gary is Senior Policy Officer at Griffith University. He has worked with research ethics
committees in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. Gary has acted as a
training facilitator for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and has
been involved in revising the National Statement. He has completed consultancy work for the
CMC, CSIRO, NHMRC, State and Commonwealth governments, various universities and
health commissions. Gary will be co-facilitating by videoconference.