As of January 2010, the National Science Foundation (NSF) requires that applicant institutions have in place - at the time of proposal submission - a plan for providing "appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research to undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers."[1]

In support of the NSF requirement, GU has identified a program - offered through CITI (The Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative at the University of Miami) - to meet this RCR requisite and specifics are described below. While this new requirement only applies to NSF funded lab personnel, we extend and encourage this RCR training for all faculty, staff, students and researchers at GU with an interest in ethics education and the responsible conduct of research and scholarship.

The GU Plan for Fulfilling the RCR Requirement

The CITI public access course in the Responsible Conduct of Research is available to the GU research community free of charge. Discipline-specific courses are available for Biomedical, Social & Behavioral Research, the Physical Sciences, Humanities, Engineers, and Administrators.

The RCR topic areas include: Research Misconduct, Data Management, Conflict of Interest, Collaborative Science, Responsible Authorship, Mentoring, Peer Review, Lab Animals, and Human Subjects.

You can also find CITI training modules specifically on Human Subjects Research and Lab Animal Welfare. Each training section takes about 20 - 30 minutes to complete, and each module does not need to be completed all at once.

Upon completion of the RCR course, you will receive a certificate of completion.

Note to Faculty Researchers

It is a Principal Investigator's responsibility to inform undergraduate students, graduate students or postdoctoral fellows paid from NSF funds of the mandatory RCR training.

How to Begin

(1) Go to www.citiprogram.org to register for CITI online training.

(2) Click on "New Users Register Here."

(3) Under "Select your institution or organization" page, select Gonzaga University.

(4) Create your own username, password, and then select the Learner Group.

Once you have completed the preceding steps you are logged in and registered for the course. You may begin the appropriate course or log out and return at another time. If you chose to log out, when you return to the CITI homepage you will not need to register again. You will login with the username and password you have already created. Upon completion of the course, you will receive a certificate of completion.

Thank you and best wishes. If you have any question call or email:

Joann Waite
Director of Sponsored Research and Programs
Gonzaga University
502 East Boone Ave. BCH 205
Spokane, WA 99258
Telephone: (509) 313-5870
waite@gonzaga.edu
www.gonzaga.edu/srpo

[1] For more background information, please see: Federal Register, August 20, 2009 (v 74, no. 160), Action: NSF's Implementation of Section 7009 of the America Competes Act, pp. 42126-42128. http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-19930.htm

In addition to the above, the following National Science Foundation website includes the actual Statutory Requirement, Federal Register Notices, and NSF-Funded Beta Sites that provide resources on ethics education in science and engineering: http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/rcr.jsp.