Note that there are two courses available for NIH-compliant Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training. There is an initial course for those who have never had RCR training and a refresher course for those who are now postdocs or graduate students in year 5. Please see details below on both courses.
For a boilerplate document that can be used to describe the NIH-compliant RCR training for grad students and postdocs for fellowship and training grant (F30, 31, 32, and T32) applications, please click here or see paragraph below.
Ethical Scientific Conduct (Spring 2025)
School of Graduate Studies Course No. 16:115:556 for New Brunswick/Piscataway or GSND 5001Q for Newark Health Sciences
- This Initial training course is required for first year biomedical PhD students and Masters of Science students. The course complies with NIH guidelines for Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training and consists of 13 hours of training. Attendance and participation in the discussion of cases as well as weekly written assignments are required. It is a 1 credit and is Pass/Fall.
- Weekly starting January 27, 2025, Mondays 4:00-5:00 pm. Offered primarily by Zoom with 2 in-person sessions during the semester. For a current syllabus of the class, Click Here.
- If you are a graduate student, you should register for this course through your usual method.
- If you are not a postdoc or junior faculty and have never had Responsible Conduct of Research training at any university, you can register for this Initial training course by completing the registration form for RCR training and returning it to Tina Marottoli (tina.marottoli@rutgers.edu)
- To access the course materials on Canvas, Click Here.
- Course directors: Janet Alder, PhD New Brunswick/Piscataway, and Carol Lutz, PhD Newark Health Sciences
Ethical Scientific Conduct Refresher (Spring 2025)
School of Graduate Studies Course No. 16:115:558
- This Refresher Responsible Conduct of Research course is required for:
- PhD graduate students who are in their 5th year of PhD
- MD/PhD students who are in their 3rd year of PhD
- Postdocs who are on NIH training grants and who have had initial ethics training or Junior Faculty who have K awards.
- Those who require initial training to comply with NIH guidelines should register for Ethical Scientific Conduct 16:115:556
- The refresher will comply with NIH guidelines that require 8 hours of training including small group discussions of topics decreed by the NIH. http://ori.hhs.gov/rcr-casebook-stories-about-researchers-worth-discussing
Attendance and participation in discussion of cases are required. It is a 0 credit class and is Pass/Fail. - For a current syllabus of the class, Click Here.
- If you are a graduate student, you should register for this course through your usual method.
- If you are a postdoc or junior faculty and have taken Responsible Conduct of Research training previously at any university, you can register for this Refresher training course by completing the registration form for RCR training and returning it to Tina Marottoli (tina.marottoli@rutgers.edu)
- Course director: Janet Alder, PhD
- Offered by Zoom except for first session which will be in-person
- The dates that the refresher will be held this Spring 2025 are:
- Feb 4, 3-5pm
- Feb 11, 3-5pm
- Feb 18, 3-5pm
- Feb 25, 3-5pm
Responsible Conduct of Research Training Policy
The School of Graduate Studies at Rutgers University offers an annual Ethical Scientific Conduct course for the purposes of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training that is compliant with NIH requirements.
- The course addresses the following topics: conflict of interest – personal, professional, and financial – and conflict of commitment, in allocating time, effort, or other research resources; policies regarding human subjects, live vertebrate animal subjects in research, and safe laboratory practices; mentor/mentee responsibilities and relationships; safe research environments (e.g., those that promote inclusion and are free of sexual, racial, ethnic, disability and other forms of discriminatory harassment); collaborative research, including collaborations with industry and investigators and institutions in other countries; peer review, including the responsibility for maintaining confidentiality and security in peer review; data acquisition and analysis; laboratory tools (e.g., tools for analyzing data and creating or working with digital images); recordkeeping practices, including methods such as electronic laboratory notebooks; secure and ethical data use; data confidentiality, management, sharing, and ownership; research misconduct and policies for handling misconduct; responsible authorship and publication; the scientist as a responsible member of society, contemporary ethical issues in biomedical research, and the environmental and societal impacts of scientific research.
- The duration of the course is for one semester and participants are required to attend a minimum of eleven, one-hour weekly meetings.
- The format of the course is weekly meetings conducted as a large group lecture for 25 min followed by a small group (~10 students/group) discussion of cases for 25 min.
- Faculty participation includes both the large group lecture conducted by an expert in the field who is affiliated with Rutgers University and the small groups facilitated by Rutgers faculty actively conducting research who represent each of biomedical graduate programs.
- The large lectures can have assistance as necessary from regulatory experts from the schools and are video captured to allow for review.
- Graduate students register and receive one credit for completion of the requirements. To allow for the additional frequency of instruction fellows and others are provided a certificate of completion after attendance at a minimum of eleven meetings.
- F33 and K award recipients at Rutgers can either take the class themselves and/or lead small group sessions.
- Initial training is required for all first-year graduate students as well as for postdoctoral fellows on training grants who have not completed a course in RCR in graduate school.
- RCR training is required at least once per education stage and no less than once every 4 years.
- To this end, refresher training is required for all fifth-year graduate students and postdoctoral fellows on training grants who have completed a course in RCR in graduate school. Refresher training consists of 8 hours of small group case discussion lead by faculty.