Course Contracts and IRBs

       In Friday's class we got the low-down on course contracts. The first issue is finding a faculty mentor. I have already browsed through several professors and their interests and I do not think there is anyone who is specifically interested in the topic of my field study - human-animal relationships. But there are a few professors who have done some research with behavioral ecology, so I am going to go and talk to them about this project. So possible course contracts...my major does have a special topics class, and a research course and a seminar course. I think special topics will be the best fit though. For the second course, there is really only one course that would work well with my project. Wildlife Behavioral Ecology is an elective credit. I think it would perfectly for this summer because a big part of my study is animal behavior and how it is affected by human relationships. But this is a 500 level class and I am not sure exactly what I would do in the field to meet the requirements of the class. The description on the Undergraduate Catalog says that field trips are required...hopefully being around animals every day will be sufficient : ) I will go and talk to the professor about it. If that does not work out though, I am really not sure what I will do. Ashley said we should develop a course that will work well with our project and that will get us out the door and interacting with the world. None of the other courses required for my major really meet those requirements...they would be read and write courses, which we want to avoid. Hopefully it will work out.

     We also started talk just a little about IRBs. We had to read a couple for class and annotate them. I was surprised at how many gaps I found with the sample protocols - were they purposefully bad, or is it really just that hard to cover everything that needs to be covered? I am sure I will learn all about IRBs and how to write them; we have to take a tutorial, make several drafts, and will be discussing them a lot in class. So that's good.