Students undertaking research at the Lebanese American University (LAU) are responsible of conducting their research in accordance with the “Code of Ethical and Legal Conduct of Research” prepared by the “Office of Graduate Studies and Research”.

The purpose of my presentation is to observe to what extent the university, Faculty, students and LAU libraries are complying with the above code specifically the ethical and legal aspects of the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation.

The first part will analyse the standards, policies and procedures provided by LAU to ensure the academic integrity and the related /associated practices in the conduct of research.

What environment is created to promote the legal and ethical aspects of ETD?

How do Faculty provide leadership, professional practices, mentoring and training to foster the culture of academic integrity and ethics in their students so that their thesis do not breach or violate academic ethics?

What are the sanctions and measures imposed when violations interfere?

Who hold the copyright of the thesis, how does the university share students' thesis and what licenses are attached to them?

The second part will expose the responsibilities and commitments of students in conducting their research particularly their practices in respecting academic integrity

Do students know their rights and responsibilities and do they abide by the rules and regulations provided by the university regarding ethical and legal aspects/issues of ETD?

How do students deal with copyright in collecting and presenting data and using third party copyrighted materials?

What to do to avoid plagiarism and not breach the ethics of research?

Do they know their rights when accepting publishing their thesis in LAU repository (LAUR)?

How are they respecting the values for the conduct of research particularly the protection of humans and animal care when they are involved in their research?

Questionnaires/surveys will be provided to both students and faculty to respond to the above questions and upon the findings we will be able to evaluate the ethical and legal aspects of ETD at LAU in order to correct and improve the practices and rectify the misconducts.

On the author:

EDUCATION:

1981-1982 DEA, Library Science. Université de Bordeaux III, Faculté D'Information et de

Communication- Bordeaux- France.

1977-1980 Bachelor of library Science. Lebanese University. Faculty of Information and Documentation. Beirut, Lebanon.

LANGUAGES:

Fluent in English, French and Arabic

JOB EXPERIENCE:

2012- Present: Senior Archivist- Archives and special Collections-Lebanese American University (LAU).

2007- 2012: ILL/DDS Librarian at the Lebanese American University (LAU).

-Responsible of creating the “Lebanese Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services Consortium (LIDS)” between the following academic Libraries:

Lebanese American University (LAU),Balamand University (UOB),Notre-Dame University (NDU),Universite Saint Esprit-Kaslik (USEK) Haigazian University, Middle-East University, Beirut Arab University, American University of Beirut (AUB) and ESCWA Library.

October 2000-2012: Instructor at LAU-Teaching learning Resources Techniques.

2007- Present: Part-time Instructor at the Lebanese University-Faculty of Information and Documentation.

Courses: Online Databases, Sources of Information, Library services, Information Retrieval, Library Resources.

2010-2011: Part-time Instructor at the Beirut Arab University-Teaching Online Databases (see below list of presentations)

October 1996-2006: Serials Librarian; ILL/DDS Librarian-LAU.

October 1994-1996: Reference Librarian-LAU.

1990-1993: Manager of the Archives (print and audio) of the Radio Station “SAWT EL CHAAB”

Function: Replacing the manual system by an automated one.

1991-1993: Manager of the audio-visual Archives of the Television Station “NEW TV”

Function: Creating an automated system.

1986-1989: Instructor at the Lebanese University. Faculty of Information and Documentation

Courses: References, Press archives, cataloguing

1980-1981: Manager of the archives of the Newspaper “As-Safir”