All graduate students are expected to successfully complete the Scholarship and Research Integrity (SARI) program as a requirement for graduation. The SARI program is an opportunity to engage graduate students broadly in a dialog surrounding issues pertinent to research ethics.
The SARI program has two parts:
- During the first year of enrollment, graduate students are required to complete the online Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training program provided by the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). Successful completion of the program should register in LionPath.
- Graduate students are also required to engage in an additional 5 hours of discussion-based research ethics education prior to degree completion. The Colloquium for first-semester graduate students (RSOC 590) provides 3 of the 5 hours. Topics include publication practices and responsible authorship; peer review of manuscripts and proposals; acquisition, management, sharing, and ownership of data; conduct of scientific research; and mentor/trainee selection and responsibility. Attendance is mandatory at the RSOC 590 classes dedicated to SARI topics, and absentees will need to make arrangements for alternative discussion-oriented SARI training. Students may also earn 2 discussion-based SARI hours by taking RSOC 513 (Research Methods in the Rural Social Sciences).
Additional workshops and events that count toward the SARI requirements are available online. Students who attend these workshops need to work with the Graduate Program Coordinator to file the completion certification.
Students will be expected to complete the requirements in their first year. Very rarely do students start in the spring. In such cases, however, they will be expected to complete the on-line RCR training in the spring and to have completed all requirements by the end of the subsequent fall semester. Students are reminded that successful completion of the SARI program is mandatory for graduation.
