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Jan 19, 2011

Nature News says the Office of Research Integrity's latest attempt at "making research-integrity training more useful and effective" takes the form of an interactive video, called The Lab. This video — which is "soon to be available online, and on DVD for universities that get US federal funding," according to Nature — allows participants the chance to assume the role of one of four characters in a lab in which fraud occurs:

There's the eager young graduate student whose parents keep asking when she'll graduate. There's the overworked postdoc torn between his pregnant wife and his duties in the lab. There's an up-and-coming principal investigator who feels overwhelmed by the demands of his work and his family, but can't stop himself from accepting invitations to speak at even minor conferences. And there's a research integrity officer — the official in charge of looking into suspected cases of misconduct.

Nature says The Lab is "realistic and absorbing depiction of lab life — peppered with references to cultural touchstones," which "makes the video true to life." The four characters' actions in response to scientific fraud also incur realistic consequences: "… even when characters do the 'right' thing, events don't always work out for the best," Nature adds. Catherine Sheely at Johns Hopkins University told Nature that "a lab is … its own little dysfunctional family," and added that ORI's interactive video aptly addresses some of the "personal concerns that come up because of scientific ethical questions."

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