This article addresses the critical need for effective teaching strategies in research integrity (RI), acknowledging widespread uncertainty among educators on the best approach. Building on existing literature, the authors advocate for an ethics-inclusive perspective in RI courses, emphasizing the importance of understanding the ethical dimensions of research practice beyond mere regulatory compliance. In the main article, this dimension of RI training is discussed in detail with regard to ethics. In an abstract we provide a ready-to-use manual of how to implement this in research integrity training. The structure of the article includes a discussion of the ethical foundation of RI. The Appendix introduces a practical, tested course package designed to assist educators, particularly those without specialized ethics training, in developing meaningful RI courses. This includes a detailed overview of the course content, and practical guidance for implementation, aiming to equip educators with the tools necessary to navigate the complexities of teaching research integrity. The focus is on PhD students (but nothing is suggesting that the contents of the article and the Appendix, cannot be used for teaching research integrity on other levels), with the hope that the NERQ community’s shared experiences will contribute significantly to advancing RI education.

The internet, either as a tool or as an area of research, adds moral worries to an already complicated research ethical backdrop. Agencies, professional associations and philosophers have formulated research ethical norms designed to help scientists to arrive at responsible solutions to the problems. Yet, many criticize this reliance on norms. Somewhat more precisely, many claim that research ethical norms do not offer guidance. In the literature at least three arguments to that effect can be found. First, the research ethical norms fail to guide since they are inconsistent. Second, they fail to guide since they are too opaque. Third, they fail to guide since they cannot handle the moral complexity of issues scientists doing e-research face. In this paper I argue that these arguments are weak. The arguments are, in their original formulations, rather unclear. I try to improve the situation by spelling out the arguments with reference to a certain set of research ethical norms, to a certain account of action-guidance and with reference to certain important distinctions. It then turns out that the arguments' premises are either untenable or suffers from lack of relevance. The arguments do not force us to conclude that research ethical norms fail to guide.

Educational researchers have concluded that there are threshold concepts in a large number of disciplines. Yet, these researchers have not paid enough attention to the objection to the theory. It is beset with severe definitional and empirical problems. I will portray definitions of 'threshold concepts' provided by Land and Meyer, the founding fathers of the threshold concept theory. I argue, in the first place, that the definitions fail and, in the second place, that even if the definitional problems were solved and we were able to identify some threshold concepts, their scientific importance would be limited if not nil.