Responsible Conduct of Research- RCR

Return to Professional Development for Research and Career Planning

Several federal agencies now require researchers who receive funding federal funds to complete training on the responsible conduct of research.

CMDITR members can complete custom RCR modules available through the members only website. The major areas are rights and obligations, collaboration, communication, grants management and intellectual property.

Research Misconduct

By officical definitions from NSF, NIH and other agencies Research misconduct includes:

• Plagiarism

The appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit

• Fabrication

Making up data or results and recording or reporting them

• Falsification

Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record

OR Other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research

Intellectual Property

Copyright

Today it is very easy to search the internet for images using tools like Google Images and online repositories such as Flicker. Image capture and manipulation tools have made it very easy to make copies, derivatives and composites of images. This creates a confusing landscape for rights management. There are many possible uses for copyrighted works and each has different kinds of rights and responsibilities. First, the 1976 copyright law provides a specific right to use or copy a copyrighted work under the category of fairuse for educational purposes. Many institutions have more explicit interpretations of the "fair use" doctrine. Fair use generally says it permissible to make a temporary copy of image for immediate classroom or instructional use. A number of guidelines for fair use governs the amount of work (usually text), the period of time it is used, the lack of commercial gain, or lack of monetary damage to the owner, and then need to cite the copyrighted source.

Fair use does not extend to the publication of work or a permanent redistribution as in a website or digital library. For these uses explicit permission must be sought from the copyright owner. Some images from government sources are public domain. Open repositories such as Wikimedia frequently use the Creative Commons schema which allows owners to grant shades of rights, such as share and share alike, non-commerical, attribution. This license allows some uses without explicit permission provided you follow the license terms in your use.

• CONFU Fair use guidelines
• A teachers's guide to fair use

RCR Resources

• CMDITR RCR training- Now hosted through the Ethics Core Digital Library. CMDITR members should enroll through the members website

• CMDITR Dramatized video on whistleblowing

• Export Controls Primer from Georgia Tech

• RCR from Northern Illinois Univ

• CITI RCR programs

• Ethics Core Digital Libary

• The Lab- Avoiding Research Misconduct- interactive video from HHS-ORI