Each online simulation presents two (2) ethical dilemmas/situations that introduce students to ethical frameworks, provide them with a framework for making ethical decisions, and reinforce the learning by immersing them in real-world situations.

In “The Case of the Slick White Paper”, the first of two dilemmas presented in this simulation, the participant is faced with a deadline for a journal publication and has not had time to write the paper. One opportunity is to work with a ghost writer, another is to collaborate with a junior researcher who has a paper that covers the same material and is very well organized. The challenges are to assure that the deadline is met, the article has integrity, and that the authors receive appropriate attribution.

In the second dilemma, “The Case of the Cold Feet”, the participant discovers that someone else in the organization has plagiarized someone else’s work. Further, the participant discovers that data in the article does not match the original paper nor can it be replicated. So the question to be answered is: “What do you do when you suspect a colleague has falsified data in a report?”

About the Author: Catharyn A. Baird, J.D., is the CEO and Founder of EthicsGame and Professor Emerita of Business Regis University, Denver, Colorado. She began researching personal and professional ethics when she was a practicing attorney, representing children and parents who found themselves enmeshed in the juvenile justice system. As she worked with families, she became intrigued by the question of why some children seemed to know the “right thing to do” while others did not. [more]