Abstract

LSCI6000 Research Methods and Ethics in Life Science is a new 3-units compulsory postgraduate course for all Year 1 research postgraduate (RPG) students in School of Life Sciences (SLS) (started from September 2020 with 41 new RPG students). This course serves as a general introduction to the postgraduate life of new postgraduate students and discusses basic research methods, data analysis, writing and presentation skills in Life Sciences Research. Also, the course provides guidelines for the responsible conduct of research, and educates scientists conducting research to ensure a high ethical standard.

To achieve the strategic goal of the University Strategic Plan 2021-2025 in further engaging postgraduate students in teaching and teaching development, in this project we aim to engage existing RPG students of SLS in developing teaching materials with inputs from RPGs based on their experiences. With the supervision of Prof. Jiang, RPG students will develop short online videos to introduce and discuss recent publications in prestigious international journals (e.g. Science and Nature) that are related to Research Methods and Ethics in Life Sciences as well as personal experience and career development. In a simple and inspiring way, they will summarize the content of each selective paper or essay (e.g. “Working Life” published in each issue of Science) with several questions in a 5-minute video for in-class discussion. Students taking this course can thus learn by themselves via watching these newly and timely developed videos with critical thinking questions and have thorough understanding of the related topics to be discussed before the lectures. As a result, they can have more intensive and deep discussion about latest development in Research Methods and Ethics in a timely fashion with inputs from the prior RPGs during valuable lecture time.