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Research Misconduct Case Study

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Here's your chance to show me all that you are learning, and my chance to make sure that we are on track to meet the course learning goals. This assignment is designed to get you familiar with policies at CU Denver, and gain experience navigating academic and government websites to locate this type of information.
Read the CU Denver policy for research misconduct and either the Department of Health and Human Services or National Science Foundation's policy for research misconduct and answer the following questions:
1. What is the definition of research misconduct under each policy?
1. The University of Colorado Denver lists four different sections within its definition of research misconduct. First, it lists research misconduct as any fabrication, …show more content…

The National Science Foundation goes through the same definition as The University of Colorado Denver by stating research misconduct includes falsification, fabrication and plagiarism when proposing, performing, reviewing or reporting any research funded by the NSF. Also, it states research misconduct does not include honest error of differences in opinion.
2. What is one key difference between the policies?
A very important key difference between these two definitions of research misconduct is the National Science Foundation never mentions anything about protecting whistleblowers from retaliation.
3. Do you feel this difference is important? Why or why not?
Yes, fell like this is a very important difference, because protecting whistleblowers should be explicitly mentioned in the definition of research misconduct. Protecting retaliation against a whistleblower confirms researchers are being kept honest and validates research is being done ethically. If protection is not provided for whistleblowers, then individuals who are witnessing research misconduct will be less likely to report an incidence in fear of retaliation. I do not think properly defining research misconduct can be possible without including provisions to protect individuals who are reporting these acts of falsification, fabrication and

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