X. Responsible Conduct of Research Policy

I. Background

In 2007, Congress passed the America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in  Technology, Education, and Science) Act, which required that "each institution that applies for financial assistance from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for science and engineering research or education describe in its grant proposal a plan to provide appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research to undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers participating in the proposed research project.''

II. Impact

For every grant it holds from the National Science Foundation, Linfield College must show that it has provided all relevant personnel with adequate training on the responsible conduct of research. For each NSF award, participating members must show proof of having taken the appropriate training module through National Ethics Center Ethics CORE Beta, a website that provides online tutorials on the responsible conduct of research. The Associate Dean for Curriculum, Assessment and Development at Linfield College will be responsible for creating user accounts, and for certifying that grant personnel have completed the requisite training within the time frame specified in listed below.

III. Policy

In order to address the RCR requirement, Linfield has adopted the following policy, which applies to all grants from the National Science Foundation.

• When a principal investigator (PI) receives a grant from the National Science Foundation, that person will provide the Associate Dean and Director of Foundation and Corporate Relations with the name of each student who works on the grant project.

• The PI will require students to complete the ethics training module using this instruction sheet within 30 days of notification. The tutorials should take up to three hours.

• Since the training is general and not project specific, NSF grant funds cannot be used to compensate students for taking the training tutorial.

• If human subjects are used in research, students will also need to take the NIH course on Protecting Human Research Participants.

If Linfield happens to be a subgrantee of an NSF grant awarded to another institution, Linfield students will comply with the RCR policy of that institution.

For questions about this policy, please contact Tiffany Cook, grants administrator, by email or at 503-883-2685.