America COMPETES at 5 years: An Analysis of Research-Intensive Universities’ RCR Training Plans

Abstract

This project evaluates the impact of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) policy to promote education in the responsible conduct of research (RCR). To determine whether this policy resulted in meaningful RCR educational experiences, our study examined the instructional plans developed by individual universities in response to the mandate. Using a sample of 108 U.S. institutions classified as Carnegie “very high research activity”, we analyzed all publicly available NSF RCR training plans in light of the consensus best practices in RCR education that were known at the time the policy was implemented. We found that fewer than half of universities developed plans that incorporated at least some of the best practices. More specifically, only 31% of universities had content and requirements that differed by career stage, only 1% of universities had content and requirements that differed by discipline; and only 18% of universities required some face-to-face engagement from all classes of trainees. Indeed, some schools simply provided hand-outs to their undergraduate students. Most universities (82%) had plans that could be satisfied with online programs such as the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative's RCR modules. The NSF policy requires universities to develop RCR training plans, but provides no guidelines or requirements for the format, scope, content, duration, or frequency of the training, and does not hold universities accountable for their training plans. Our study shows that this vaguely worded policy, and lack of accountability, has not produced meaningful educational experiences for most of the undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doctoral trainees funded by the NSF.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11948-017-9883-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Assessing the Benefits of Research

“…Meanwhile, the physical sciences frequently require no training at all, while biological and social sciences usually require a short course in the appropriate treatment of animal or human test subjects. Some federal research grants require training in the responsible conduct of research-often weakly implemented (Phillips et al 2018)-which focuses on the research and publication process. What happens after publication is given only cursory attention.…”

Graduate students reported practices regarding the issue of informed consent and maintaining of data confidentiality in a developing country

“…In developed countries, training of graduate students on research ethics is mandatory by most academic institutions before research onset [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. For example, the National Institute of Health in the USA requires training on the protection of research participants for all research that involves human subjects [ 14 ].…”

Recommendations for Effective Integration of Ethics and Responsible Conduct of Research (E/RCR) Education into Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences: A Meeting Report

“…As a result, training in this context is often highly variable and less reliable. Attempts to formalize E/RCR education in response to federal mandates (America COMPETES Act, 2007; NIH, 2009) have resulted in diverse approaches, with a majority (82%) of research-intensive institutions adopting a framework that requires trainees to complete one or more online instructional modules (Phillips et al. , 2018), such as the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (Braunschweiger and Goodman, 2007).…”