Course description

This is a free course of 2 hours, divided into 6 modules of 20 minutes. We provide an introduction to the very important idea of research integrity which we link to ethics, the Sustainable Development Goals and to Citizen Science. It is aimed at anyone who is engaged with research or/and community development and all practitioners working in the field of Citizen Science – or in fact in any field that is engaging with communities and is concerned about empowerment and participatory democracy. It is therefore of relevance to students, academics, researchers, policy makers or planners who are already involved in community development or who are at the early stages of designing a community development research project – or taking a community development project one step further.

There are thousands of researchers who are engaged with projects to do with science and society and who are looking for a way to work with integrity.  This inspiring course examines what ethical behavior is – how can we ensure that our work is always conducted with integrity. Our ideas on  research integrity and ethics are grounded in a very practical example of a citizen science project in the Limpopo, one of the poorest provinces in South Africa. This citizen science project is about monitoring groundwater in remote rural wells but the lessons learnt here apply to many other fields and are relevant in many other sites – especially – but not only – in a developing country context.

On completion of this course, you will understand:

• The relationship between ethics and research integrity;
• Why this relationship is so important when conducting a citizen science project;
• The relationship between research methods (the approach) and the process which is necessary in order to ensure ethics and integrity.

We target researchers, practitioners working in NGO’s, academics (lecturers, graduate and post graduate students) – but also journalists and media who are interested in knowing more about citizen science and community empowerment. Our course would also be of use to donors and government officials who are responsible for community development projects – both at the initial design phase of the project but also in monitoring and assessing the integrity of the project.

Click here to enrol in this course and use enrolment key RIECS to do so. Once you enrol you will be able to take quizzes and receive a badge upon successful course completion.