Ombudsperson for Academic Ethics and Procedures of the Republic of Lithuania
Curriculum Vitae Ombudsperson agendaIn February, we had meetings with teachers from the University of Applied Social Sciences. At a meeting on 17 February, the Office’s Senior Specialist (Senior Analyst), Dr Julija Umbrasaitė introduced the community to the development of the establishment of academic ethics in research and higher education, the concept of academic ethics, the types, and consequences of breaches of academic ethics, and the Office’s directions. During the meeting, the Senior Specialist (Senior Analyst) of the Office, Dr Eglė Ozolinčiūtė shared hints on how to avoid image plagiarism. Participants were given examples of how to find, select and properly cite images in their research and teaching materials. Dr Eglė Ozolinčiūtė also presented the Office’s Guidelines for ensuring academic ethics in distance learning organising, which discussed the challenges faced by Lithuanian research and higher education institutions during the pandemic period. Participants had the opportunity to find out to what extent their higher education institution has measures in place to prevent breaches of academic ethics in distance learning. More than 40 members of the University of Applied Social Sciences community attended the meeting.
At a meeting on 24 February, the Lead of the Office, Dr Loreta Tauginienė presented the results of the survey “Barometer of responsible research 2020”, which encourages the participants to reflect on the situation of academic ethics in the research community, to be sensitive and to react to cases of academic ethics breaches. The Office’s Senior Specialist Dr Eglė Ozolinčiūtė presented an Office’s study on the changes in the recommendations on the adoption, implementation and maintenance of codes of academic ethics of research, procedures at higher education institutions in this regard and the development of regulations in the field of academic ethics at research and higher education institutions following the Office’s Recommendations on the Approval, Embedding and Monitoring of Academic Ethics Codes by Research and Higher Education Institutions published in 2015. The results of the content analysis of the documents showed that most research and higher education institutions tend to take at least partly into account, or interpret in their own way, the Office’s Recommendations when drafting regulations on the activities of their academic ethics committees. More than 30 members of the community attended the meeting.