Research Management

Description of the Problem

Many universities have rules about uses of research funding, research involving live subjects, and other areas with ethical content. In order to ensure that faculty are familiar with these rules, they are required to complete a set of online tests. At a faculty meeting, one faculty member complained about the time the certification took, and volunteered to give the test answers to any other faculty member who had not already taken the certification exams.

Questions

• What should the meeting chair have done?
   
• If you were a faculty member at this meeting, what would you have done?
   
• Are online certification tests a good way to inform faculty about all of the research rules?
   
• What is the difference between this faculty member’s behavior and an undergraduate who gets the answers to a test in advance and provides them to his friends?