Institute for Biomedical Philosophy

The faculty from the Institute for Biomedical Philosophy have facilitated over 100 professional development workshops for diverse learners across university and other non-profit environments including workshops for trainee participants ranging from undergraduates to post-doctoral fellows and for faculty participants ranging from junior faculty to administrators. These workshops have been delivered in formats from an hour to several weeks in length and have focused on a wide range of topics including: effective writing, ethics, partnership formation, academic management, science content, effective evaluation, learning theory, differentiating instruction, curriculum integration, and gender/race/ethnicity responsiveness issues.

Professional development opportunities focus on culturally and linguistically appropriate approaches and can be provided as extended multisession integrative learning experiences, or specific topics can be offered in discrete one hour brown bag lunch formats. All programs are designed according to relevant pedagogical and learning theories.

Inter-Institutional Research Collaborations: Dissemination and Collaboration Ethics

In addition to standard ethical considerations framed by institutional, state, and federally mandated standards, projects must also consider the diverse nature of institutional cultures of partnering institutions when developing inter-institutional research collaboration specific practices. This professional development opportunity can be scaled to be appropriate for undergraduate through post-doctoral trainees or faculty and will address: 1) IRB/IACUC documentation; 2) focus on culturally and linguistically appropriate approaches including consideration of institutional cultures of partnering institutions; 3) issues concerning working with children and special populations; 4) issues concerning consent; 5) collection and storage of data including proper experimental design issues surrounding group composition and access to information; 6) development of shared publications and dissemination agreement including issues of authorship, intellectual property, copyright, and assurances; 7 issues of confidentially of information provided by staff and partners during the evaluation since jobs may be adversely effected by negative reports about project or project PI; and 8) collaborative development of a standard of ethical conduct for the project by the partnering institutions.

Partnership Formation and Collaboration for Interdisciplinary Teams and Projects

Projects can be strengthened by effective collaboration among organizations that share a common goal since expertise and resources can be combined to achieve outcomes not possible individually. However, unsuccessful collaborations can hinder a project if expectations are not clearly defined or if plans fail to strengthen collaboration over time. This professional development opportunity is appropriate for post-doctoral fellows, early career research faculty, as well as for faculty that have, or desire to have, administrative responsibilities and will address: 1) identification of necessary expertise to successfully conduct project; 2) development of internal project team; 3) identification of areas that would be enhanced by collaboration due to gaps in expertise, access to resources or audiences, or due to shared goals or visions; 4) identification of potential partners in these areas; 5) development of a collaboration plan that includes institutional cultures of the partners, logistical issues such as meeting arrangements, and considerations of how collaboration will grow over time; 6) role of evaluator in the collaborative process; and 7) approaches to handle problematic or ineffective collaborations.

Manuscript Writing as a Member of a Team

When working as a member of a research team, it is important to be aware of a number of ethical issues as they relate to publication/dissemination such as authorship, intellectual property, copyright, and assurances. This professional development opportunity can be scaled to be appropriate for undergraduate through post-doctoral trainees or faculty and will include guidance on factors that are critical for successful collaborative publication including 1) division of dissemination tasks among team members (identifying outlets, literature review, data analysis and presentation, writing, editing, formatting, submission, post-submission follow up, revision, resubmission); 2) developing publication strategies to maximize impact; 3) targeting writing for selected publication in terms of theoretical framework and focus; 4) development of dissemination time line; 5) value and utility of peer editing and revision; 6) logistical concerns for joint publication such as cover letters and conflicts of interest; 7) team approach to post-submission follow-up; and 8)development of team approach to rewriting/revision in response to reviews. This professional development opportunity can also be conducted to include guidance on the completion of each section of a scientific manuscript (research methodologies, findings, and results; effective use of figures and tables; formatting statistics and citations; composing concise, purposeful, introductions; crafting logical and powerful arguments and conclusions).

Workshop on the Beach in the Florida Keys!