Code of Conduct

All lab members, along with visitors, are expected to agree with the following code of conduct. We will enforce this code as needed. We expect cooperation from all members to help ensure a safe environment for everybody. All SCN-LAB members are expected to abide by the University of Barcelona code of good practices, which you can (and must) read about here.

Essential Policies

The lab is committed to ensuring a safe, friendly, and accepting environment for everybody. We will not tolerate any verbal or physical harassment or discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We will not tolerate intimidation, stalking, following, unwanted photography or video recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. Finally, it should go without saying that lewd language and behavior have no place in the lab, including any lab outings.

If you notice someone being harassed, or are harassed yourself, tell the PI or the lab coordinators immediately. If the PI or the lab coordinators are the cause of your concern, then reach out to the department director or another trusted faculty member in the department.

We expect members to follow these guidelines at any lab-related event.

Taking Photos & Videos

We respect the privacy and comfort of lab members by only taking photos or video recordings of them with their explicit knowledge and consent. This is especially important in situations where a lab member would otherwise not be aware of you taking a photo and therefore cannot object if they do not want you to – e.g. if they are wearing one of our EEG headsets or are being scanned.

The goal of this is to foster an environment where everyone feels safe to be who they are, take risks, and have fun, without worry or self-consciousness. If someone wants to be photographed doing something fun or silly in lab events, and consents to be photographed, by all means, go ahead! Just please respect the privacy of those who do not want that.

On a related note, you cannot photograph your participants during an experiment. If you would like a photograph of someone demonstrating your experiment, ask a lab member if they would feel comfortable being photographed while demonstrating what a participant does in an experiment.

Scientific Integrity

Reproducible Research

Reproducibility is related to replicability, which refers to whether your results can be obtained again with a different data set. That is, if someone ran your study again (with a different group of participants), do they get the same results? If someone ran a conceptually similar study, do they get the same results? Science grows and builds on replicable results – one-off findings don’t mean anything. Our goal is to produce research that is both reproducible and replicable.

For results to be reproducible, the analysis pipeline must be organized and well-documented. To meet these goals, you should take extensive notes on each step of your analysis pipeline. This means writing down how you did things every step of the way (and the order in which you did things), from any pre-processing of the data to running models to statistical tests. It’s also worth mentioning that you should take detailed notes on your experimental design as well. Additionally, your code should also be commented on and commented on clearly. Comment your code so that every step is understandable by an outsider.

The analysis pipeline should be made available at the SCN LAB SharePoint.

Human Subjects Research

Before you can run a study, you have to either (1) apply for a new ethical approval, or (2) have yourself added to an existing approved protocol. We have the support of two main ethical commissions that evaluate and give permission to run experiments on human subjects. The University of Barcelona Ethics Committee evaluates projects with healthy participants, and the Hospital Ethics Committee evaluates projects with clinical samples.

Contact the PI to get informed about how to apply for ethical approval for your new experiments when needed. By no means, a new study can be run without official permission from the ethical commissions.

If a participant falls ill, becomes upset, has an accident with lab equipment, or experiences any problems while you are conducting your research, you must notify the PI and the lab manager as soon as possible.