Ethics CORE is an online resource center funded by the National Science Foundation. Its mission is to collect and link to materials about professional and research ethics, especially in fields supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Ethics CORE audience includes students, practicing professionals, instructors, scholars, and administrators. All materials on Ethics CORE are available without charge to users of the site. Ethics CORE is funded by the NSF through 2015. Afterwards, Ethics CORE will be integrated into the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and sustained by separate funding.

Scope of Resources

Ethics CORE seeks to develop, acquire, and link to resources on professional and research ethics, with a focus on the responsible conduct of research in fields funded by the NSF. Because ethics issues often cross over into other fields, the Ethics CORE collection may include relevant materials from other disciplines.

Ethics CORE does not commission resources related to medical or health care ethics, as other organizations are already working on comprehensive resources addressing these issues. We seek to complement, rather than duplicate, the efforts of other institutions.

Types of Materials in Ethics CORE

• Courses, syllabi, handouts, presentations, videos, podcasts, essays, published or unpublished articles (as permitted by copyright), educational materials, and other text, audio, or video objects deposited )uploaded to Ethics CORE) by their creators for open access by users of Ethics CORE
• Commissioned materials, including instructional content, scholarly articles, position papers and entries in the Ethics CORE Interactive Encyclopedia on issues of research, pedagogy, opinion, and policy
• New materials developed by Ethics CORE staff in any of these areas, also subject to review and evaluation
• Publicly available items gathered in our central repository, either in full-text or item record format, as permitted by an item’s copyright
• Materials created by Ethics CORE partner organizations, which are listed on the Partner Sites web page; these materials are labeled with their source.
• Ethics CORE—certified materials; these items have undergone peer review.

Ethics CORE is not a data repository and cannot accept most data sets. However, open data sets relevant to presenting ethics instruction and best practices will be considered; please contact our digital librarians at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

Language of Materials

All materials are in English. Duplicate submissions of materials in additional languages are welcomed and encouraged, though at this time Ethics CORE is not commissioning translations.

Collection Management

All content on the Ethics CORE site and in the Ethics CORE collection is loosely moderated and will be periodically reviewed for suitability in the collection. Ethics CORE reserves the right to refuse or withdraw any resources at any time that do not match general parameters of research and scholarship or do not reflect the intellectual environment of Ethics CORE. Examples of reasons for refusing or withdrawing a submission include plagiarism, copyright violation, or falling outside the scope of the Ethics CORE collection. For more information on the process of withdrawing a resource, see the Ethics CORE Withdrawal Policy.

Users have the freedom to upload documents to Ethics CORE without formal review. Only resources labeled "Ethics CORE—certified" or published in JOPRE or the Interactive Encyclopedia have been peer reviewed. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in resources available through Ethics CORE are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ethics CORE development team, the University of Illinois, or the National Science Foundation.

Collection Review

Ethics CORE does not currently restrict the size of its collection. If, in the future, it becomes necessary to reduce the size of the collection due to storage limits, a list of criteria for making decisions about what resources to remove will be developed. These criteria will be posted on the Ethics CORE website before any resources are removed from public access.

Conclusion

This collection policy document provides a general framework against which current and future collection decisions can be made. It is intended to be a dynamic and flexible document, responsive to changes in the academic environment and especially attentive to the needs of researchers and students who are seeking to satisfy NSF responsible conduct of research training requirements.

Last Revised August 16, 2011.