Graduation with Research Honors

I.  OBJECTIVE

The Honors in Research Program provides an opportunity for dental students to choose focused study in an area of dental science or basic science.  The program recognizes students who have demonstrated significant research contributions while students in dental school at UAB. The intent is to reward research accomplishments which exceed the traditional “summer research” efforts, to acknowledge those students who contribute in a meaningful way to the science of dentistry.

II.  RECOGNITION

Students will receive a certificate at graduation with the designation “Honors in Research.” This certificate is in addition to the DMD diploma.

III. NATURE OF HONORS WORK

Students should remain in good academic standing while performing research activities.

Students will select a mentor and in collaboration with their mentor produce an original science research project. This project when finished must be suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed dental or basic science journal. Students should generate the data for the manuscript, and must write the manuscript in an independent manner. The student should be involved in the development of the hypothesis for the project.

Clinical trials, materials testing, cross-sectional studies, and cell-based analyses are examples of suitable projects involving original data collection. Literature reviews are not considered appropriate projects.

Students must submit their manuscript to the Research Advisory Committee (RAC) for evaluation and approval by March 15 of their senior year. Manuscripts may be submitted any time prior to this date during the 4 years of dental school. If the manuscript is accepted by the RAC, the student will receive the Honors in Research designation.

Essential components of a manuscript include: Introduction (state why the problem tested is important), a testable hypothesis, materials and methods description, data and results, statistical analysis (when appropriate), a discussion of the results, and references. Students may follow the manuscript format of any peer-reviewed scientific journal for manuscript preparation.

IV. COMMITTEE REVIEW OF RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Students are encouraged to submit their proposal for research to the Chair of the Research Advisory Committee prior to initiating research efforts. In this way, the outline of the research efforts may be pre-approved by the RAC in terms of scope, scientific merit, and quality of the hypothesis. This will hopefully avoid the unfortunate situation of later rejection of honors manuscripts due to lack of depth of study or inadequate proposals.

V.  RESPONSIBILITIES OF CANDIDATES IN THE HONORS PROGRAM

Students may perform the required research at any point in their pre-doctoral training program. The summer research training program will provide an excellent starting point for completing the honors in research activities. Additionally, students must present an abstract of their research at the annual Scholar’s Day at the School of Dentistry. Students are strongly encouraged to submit their manuscript for publication as they submit it to the Research Advisory Committee for approval for the Honors in Research Designation. In this way, the work will be available to the scientific community and the discipline will advance. 

VI. PREVIOUS HONORS PROGRAM VERSIONS

This document supersedes previous Honors programs at UAB.