RESEARCH ETHICS: Record Keeping and Integrity Matthew Ronning Associate Vice Chancellor Research Administration

Regulatory Compliance  Human Subjects  Animal Subjects  Conflicts of Interest  Export Controls Scientific Misconduct And waterskiing to boot! Introduction

Quiz

Fabrication Falsification Plagiarism Other non-scholarly behaviors  Fiduciary  Egocentricity I suppose I’m guilty! Definitions

Lack of documentation Lack of communication Lack of caring Pressure to finish Leadership is missing It starts in 2 nd grade Where are the problems?

Where are the problems? Source: 2003 Office of Inspector General – National Science Foundation

Laboratory Notebooks Challenges in the digital age Fraud more prevalent with digital records Forensics are available but not infallible DO IT! Two Words on Documentation

Digital Records Systemize storage  Naming conventions  Back ups - tracked  Log / diary Keep the failures  What’s more important, validation or invalidation when testing a hypothesis?  Arguably, invalidation is more important Repeating mistakes is stupid Failure to document what has been tried and failed is a tragedy to the body of knowledge.

Pay Attention to YOU Record – Keep it clean and be religious about it Review – Remind yourself what you did the last few days. Instruct – Document instructions given and received. Share docs. Counsel – Let your subordinates and others know how to behave. Think! – Stop for a moment and think about where you’ve been and where you are headed Double Check – Lit search is not a one-stop shopping spree Heal – Shore up adversarial relationships

Some Real Examples Who thought of it first? – Plagiarism resulting from a case of “I don’t like you” Change the numbers, then run the program. – Instructions for an NIH grant application or for an educational exercise? XXX – 18 and older only