- Academic Programs & Support
- Office of the Provost
- Research at WCU
- Sponsored Research
- Research Compliance
- Responsible Conduct of Research
Responsible Conduct of Research
Western Carolina University is committed to upholding the highest ethical and professional standards in research endeavors.
Responsible Conduct of Research training is mandated for undergraduate/graduate students funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) or any research personnel funded by an NIH training grant or career award. Both on-line and in-person training is required. Topics for Responsible Conduct of Research include, but are not limited to:
- Data management
- Mentor/Mentee relationships
- Publication practices and authorship
- Peer review
- Collaborative research
- Research involving humans or animals, as applicable
- Research misconduct
- Conflict of interest and financial management
Online training is available through the CITI program under the course title "Social/Behavioral Responsible Conduct of Research"
Instructions for program and course registration can be found here.
The RCR Course requires 2-4 hours to complete and users must achieve a minimum passing score of 80%. You are not required to complete the entire course in one session. The course tracks and records progress so that you may log in and out at your convenience
Because we recognize that online training is only a starting point, we will request each NSF or NIH-funded PI to certify that he or she will provide discipline-specific mentoring in RCR during the course of the grant to all students and post-docs through laboratory meetings and other seminars.
PIs will be reminded of this requirement when they submit e-IPFs for NSF proposals in RAMSeS and when they receive a notice of award for NSF funding.
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Cullowhee, NC 28723
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