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This it is a project in which several European
Universities participate. As in all cooperative work in the long term it was
needed to create elements that allowed us to evaluate how things worked and
to what extent it the proposed objectives were being fulfilled. We are professors and investigators and
we face this project like a problem, a challenge that must solved with the
same rigor as we carry out in our investigations. We would have to apply the
same scientific method, analyze data, solve problems and reach conclusions.
After all execute a parallel investigation to know how our models of Blended
Learning, of Young Teacher and introduction of the ECTS are being developed.
We’ve therefore had established systems of measurement of the initial state
of the problem (technological segmentation, linguistic segmentation, etc.)
that would allow us to elaborate action strategies. These indicators fits
each one of the faculties, the professors, the students and the educative
system in general. The CONFIDENTIALITY
of the collected data was a requirement sine
qua non. The letter that designates each University is only known by the
investigators so that these are the only ones that can identify the results
with a particular Faculty. This was comprised in the “contract of
investigation” that we made at the first contact between the investigators
and the participant institutions. To not maintain this confidentiality for
each University would be an ethically reprovable attitude under the
regulations of any deontological code and much more if we speak of projects
and investigations in social sciences like education. These indicators would
try to measure the differences between “before”, during and “after” the implementation of the Sarajevo Joint European Project II. The study has been made so that the rights and the
well-being of the individual participants were protected. With that in mind
we have been using basically the principles, published in 1992 and reviewed
for the last time in the year 2000, of the Ethical Standards of the American
Educational Research Association. That is: 1. - At every moment the Institutions and the own individuals that participated in the study gave
their consent to be investigated in an express, conscious
and free way. Initially the different Universities were contacted to conduct
a meeting in each center between the people in charge of the project and the
people in charge of the Degree of Veterinary Medicine. On this meeting we explained in detail all the
steps of the project, showed the material we would use (questionnaires,
presentation media in CD, DVD etc.), we
set out our needs of space and time and verified the initial willingness of the centers to collaborate freely in the study.
Before initializing the investigation one clearly indicated the students that
participation was totally voluntary. We never exerted no type of coercion on
the students and the people in charge of the Institutions literally were
informed that any indicative of this type of behavior of the Faculty on its
students would invalidate the study totally. The students should not have to
be persuaded to collaborate. One the headline of all the used questionnaires and in all the phases
of the research program one again expressed the voluntary character and the
possibility at any time of leaving freely the study without any penalty for
the student. It was indicated explicitly that at no moment it was the
intention of our team to make a comparative scale between different institutions.
The data and results of the performance of the individual participants would
be at any moment confidential inclusively for the own Institution. 2. - We stick ourselves to the USE OF the DATA obtained
to the aims predicted and known by the institutions and the investigated
people. 3. - At any moment we were SINCERE AND HONEST WHEN
ANSWERING ALL THE FORMULATED QUESTIONS as to the Institution as to the
students. The institutions knew since the start the conditions of the
investigation and their purpose. 4. - “The
participants in a project must be protected from THREATS AND PHYSICAL AND
MENTAL RISKS”. One previously evaluated the suitability and security of
the places in which would be realized the project (blended learning and Young
Teacher), modifying the conditions, the furniture or requesting in some cases
a possible change of facilities. 5. - “The data
obtained about the subjects must be CONFIDENTIAL”. We safeguard the
confidentiality assuring that the data could never be associated to
individual subjects or a certain institution. 6. - “The
investigation situation must allow that the SUBJECTS CAN OBTAIN the MAXIMUM
BENEFIT from their participation”. On the first participant selection
this condition was explained in a clear and detailed way. It was important to
make the study but the learning of the students would come first. 7. - “The
investigator must act with PROFESSIONAL ETHICAL NORMS” Besides educative
investigators we are Veterinarian professors with special dedication to
internal medicine of small animals. At all times we guarded the physical and
psychological well-being of the animals. In all situations of learning the
execution of all procedures was watched closely guaranteeing the well-being of
the animals. At any case it was done or allowed the execution of any
potentially harmful manipulation for the animals. It is important to
emphasize that they were not used like “experimentation animals”. They are
not “material”, are living beings who participated like a “collaborator” of
the learning. 8. - “To safeguard the right to the own image”.
The investigator always asked permission to the students to photograph them.
They were also informed that the images could be used in educative or
investigation aims and never on lucrative ones. The sense of its use would be
to design better strategies of E-L of the
Veterinary Medicine or to support ideas or presentations with the same aim.
Also when people appear on video they were asked previously for consent. At
every moment the students were informed that they could at any time ask for
the removal of one or all of the images in which they appear without the need
of a justification. We consider that we only have the right to use the
photos, we did not consider ourselfs as “owners” of the image of third parties. In the
same way the students could ask for the images of themselves that were
obtained during the study. In fact several requests like this were received
and the images were sent. |