More Like this

1. Best Practices to Promote Field Science Safety

   https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icad014  

   Yarincik, Kristen; Kelly, Anne; McGlynn, Terry; Verble, Robin_M (April 2023, Integrative And Comparative Biology)

   Synopsis Interventions are necessary to address the ongoing epidemic of sexual harassment and assault in field settings. An evidence-based approach to identifying specific interventions will be most effective at promoting the safety of scientists. We present the results of a workshop conducted by experts in field biology and the study of sexual harassment and assault that identified a comprehensive set of best practices for individuals and organizations. These recommendations are grounded in peer-reviewed scholarship and are separated into four topics: culture change, accountability, policy development, and reporting. The resulting report of the workshop recommends 44 practices, categorized by the resources required for implementation, the time frame of implementation, and the level of organization responsible for implementation. The best practices that we present are designed to support individuals and organizations in the development of field safety plans. 

   more » « less
2. The Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Principal Investigators (PI) Guide: Development of a best practices website.

   Iglesias Pena, Mariangely; Gilbert, Stephen B; Payton, Jamie (June 2018, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   With the help of the National Science Foundation (NSF), many Principal Investigators (PIs) have been able to mentor undergraduates through Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site awards. These REU sites are critical to the development of future graduate students, but can be challenging to run due to several required skills outside the scope of most faculty members' expertise, e.g., recruiting applicants, navigating the logistics of housing visiting undergraduate students, and tracking student outcomes after their REU experiences. In recent years, REU PIs in NSF's Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate have come together through PI meetings to share best practices for running a successful REU site. While PIs inevitably take different approaches to running their sites based on their research projects, there is still a need to provide new PIs with guidance on the different aspects of an REU site such as identifying resources that can assist in recruiting women and underrepresented minority applicants, providing training for graduate students acting as mentors, and strategies for keeping a mentoring connection to undergraduate researchers after they return to their home institutions. Currently, REU site preparation and orientation for new PIs is a face-to-face process that requires careful planning and significant travel costs. The REU PI Guide, a set of web-based resources at https://www.vrac.iastate.edu/cise-reu-pi-resources/, was developed to share best practices of experienced PIs and build capacity within the REU PI community in a more scalable and cost-effective way. The REU PI Guide allows PIs to look up advice and guidance when needed and share their own best practices. This paper describes our approach to designing the REU PI Guide. The Guide is a database of documents, examples, and overviews of the different aspects of running an REU site. The Guide was developed by assessing new PIs' needs at an NSF workshop for new PIs, gathering existing resources from experienced PIs, creating and refining a website, and evaluation with new PIs. The website’s content and design will be refined through on-going feedback from PIs and other REU site stakeholders. This site has the potential broader impact to share best practices with REU PIs outside the CISE directorate and significantly ease the process of engaging future scientists via REU sites. 

   more » « less
3. Researcher Wellbeing and Best Practices in Emotionally Demanding Research

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3503742  

   Feuston, Jessica L.; Bhattacharya, Arpita; Andalibi, Nazanin; Ankrah, Elizabeth A.; Erete, Sheena; Handel, Mark; Moncur, Wendy; Vieweg, Sarah; Brubaker, Jed R. (April 2022, Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

   HCI researchers increasingly conduct emotionally demanding research in a variety of different contexts. Though scholarship has begun to address the experiences of HCI researchers conducting this work, there is a need to develop guidelines and best practices for researcher wellbeing. In this one-day CHI workshop, we will bring together a group of HCI researchers across sectors and career levels who conduct emotionally demanding research to discuss their experiences, self-care practices, and strategies for research. Based on these discussions, we will work with workshop attendees to develop best practices and guidelines for researcher wellbeing in the context of emotionally demanding HCI research; launch a repository of community-sourced resources for researcher wellbeing; document the experiences of HCI researchers conducting emotionally demanding research; and establish a community of HCI researchers conducting this type of work. 

   more » « less
4. Tips for Empathy, Understanding, and Ethical Research Engagement—CONVERGE Extreme Events Research Check Sheets Series

   https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-99ak-fz90  

   Peek, Lori; Tobin, Jennifer (January 2020, Designsafe-CI)

   This check sheet provides advice for being empathetic, respectful, and understanding when entering a disaster-affected community. These best practices can help researchers to be mindful of participants’ emotional well-being, collect ethically informed data, and develop more caring interactions and relationships in the field. About the CONVERGE Extreme Events Research Check Sheets Series: The National Science Foundation-supported CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a series of short, graphical check sheets that are meant to be used as researchers design their studies, prepare to enter the field, conduct field research, and exit the field. The series offers best practices for extreme events research and includes check sheets that are free to the research community. More information is available at: https://converge.colorado.edu/resources/check-sheets. 

   more » « less
5. Does the Middle School Model Make a Difference? Relating Measures of School Effectiveness to Recommended Best Practices

   https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8040160  

   Olofson, Mark; Knight, David (December 2018, Education Sciences)

   Since the emergence of middle schools as distinct educational settings in the 1960s, proponents of the model have advocated for structures and approaches that best meet the particular developmental needs of young adolescents. Middle school researchers have developed frameworks of best practices for schools that have been widely, if not uniformly, adopted. However, there is a paucity of large-scale quantitative research on the efficacy of such best practices. In this study we used state-level administrative data from Texas to estimate the school-level contribution to standardized test scores in math and language arts, along with absenteeism. We then regressed these value-added quantities on indicators of middle school structures, along with research-supported predictors of school efficacy. Results showed that schools with fewer classes in the school day and higher quality teachers performed better, among other indicators. Findings from models using the campus contribution to absenteeism were similar. These results indicate that while elements of the middle school model may help transform individual schools, the equitable distribution of resources and the undoing of de facto segregation are vital to the success of all young adolescents. 

   more » « less