RCR In-Person Trainers

A postdoctoral scholar is considering sharing data with another research group despite his clear conflict of interest and without consulting his mentor.  [01:13]

Two postdoctoral scholars are considering whether a different approach to mentoring would help their careers. [01:37]

Nicole is a graduate student who is struggling to meet and work effectively with her mentor. [02:02]

A postdoctoral scholar is leaving for a new job and has concerns about restrictions his mentor has placed on his future research plans.  [03:12]

Marty is a graduate student working in Dr. Smith's research group and has just returned from a long summer vacation where he made plans to defend his Ph.D. by the end of the upcoming semester. He also started the process of searching for and applying for jobs post-graduation. [02:07]

A young researcher learns her idea has been scooped by a peer reviewer on a grant she previously submitted. [02:21]

A PI receives harsh feedback on a peer review and is considering trying to obtain specific results to get a high-impact publication. [01:10]

A PI is purposely stalling a peer review she has to complete so her colleague can publish ahead of the competitor.  [02:39]

A PI is pressuring junior faculty members to complete his peer review responsibilities and is not disclosing this information. [01:35]

A PI is reviewing a grant application and decides his lab is better equipped to run the experiments. [02:03]

A PI discovers his student has altered his CV to add a degree the student does not have. [02:29]

A DGS discovers a student has been plagiarizing his academic assignments. [01:20]

An instructor at a university where he teaches undergraduate writing courses learns he has landed a lucrative book deal with a publisher. He is pressed for time to complete the final draft of the book he is writing. [2:01]

A graduate student is in the final stages of completing the first draft of a manuscript they hope to submit for publication. Their PI is eager to get the manuscript submitted and tells the student they should have it ready for submission by their next group meeting. The graduate student tests out a generative AI software by asking it to write an essay. [3:11]

A researcher has his post-doc study a new drug. He gets an incentive for researching the drug and presenting the date at a conference. The postdoc finds some serious side effects and the researcher chooses to not present those at the conference. [01:24] 

A researcher at a university, where he also serves as an IRB reviewer, is trying to rush to get an IRB review done because he is being pressured by his colleagues to join them for a departmental outing after work. Upon opening the IRB protocol, he realizes it has been submitted by a fellow researcher. [1:59]

Bill finishes his dissertation and works on getting a patent. In the meantime, he gets a new position in a new company and his previous work could be useful for his new job. However, the patent hasn’t been approved yet. He would put the approval in jeopardy if he introduces this new tool to his new workplace. [02:22] 

A PI suspects several researchers in her department are using NSF-funded research money to fund their personal interests and contacts the NSF to report it.  [01:26] 

[Clinical Scenario] A physician doing a repository leaves the University. Her patient’s want their samples to be removed from the original University and go with the physician, the University gets legal involved as they feel they “own” the samples. [01:40]

Fred is at the NIH and is ready to publish. After presenting his manuscript they find some original data is missing as it was accidentally permanently deleted.  [01:23]

CDC asks a hospital director to preform HIV tests on all blood samples (without consent) and send the de-identified results to the CDC.  [01:19]

A new member joins the lab and hope to continue a project from a former graduate student. She begins by repeating the last few experiments and gets different results. They look at the previous student’s data and cannot locate the raw data files.  [01:20]

A postdoc reviews data of a manuscript they are preparing and notices some data is not consistent with the primary source data. [00:49]

[STEM Case Study] Two competing labs are working on similar projects and asks to use the other labs cell lines and transgenic mice. Each lab is reluctant to share. [01:25]

Two lab members working on the same manuscript and one member discovers that the data doesn’t match up, discusses with PI and PI isn’t concerned. [01:50]

[STEM Case Study] Laboratory purchases a new commercial cell line that the lab down the hall is currently using. They repeat the experiments the other lab does and gets very different results. What could cause this? [01:50]

While reading a draft of a new manuscript from a PI in his department, the Department Chair notices that the PI used references to her own articles without citing them. He also notices that she has copied entire sections from other journal articles without proper citation. She feels that she provided proper citation. [01:29]

[STEM Case Study] Martha is new in town and her mentor, Dr. Gilmore, offered to show her around. Martha agreed but later felt uncomfortable when Dr. Gilmore took her to bars and quiet parks which made her feel like he may have viewed it as a date. [01:03]

Li Yan and Ralph are coworkers. After getting to know each other at work they go out on a single date. Li Yan decides dating is not a good idea and explains her stance to Ralph. [01:52] 

Sharon moved into a new position and Paul is her supervisor. Paul is friendly and helps her get familiar with her new job duties. Paul starts having uncomfortable conversations with Sharon. [01:13] 

Leonard is a clerk typist for a large company who hopes to advance to a career in customer relations. Leonard has recently applied for an open promotional position that is customer-facing. Leonard’s boss, Margaret tells him if he wants the job, he had better look “more normal." [01:33] 

Lexie works in Dr. Henry’s lab with two other individuals, Connie and Ralph. Lexie is often asked to work overtime and stay late finishing up experiments because her colleagues have children and are unable to stay after hours. [01:41]

A group of female students work under their faculty advisor of the same gender. They get a new male student in the lab and notice a stark difference in their PI’s behavior. [02:44]

Minju is a researcher working under the direction of her mentor, Dr. Adams. Minju is struggling with her mentor as she feels he treats her and another researcher (Stephanie) differently than the rest of the group. [03:00]

Sarah is a graduate student in Dr. Morris’ research group. Dr. Morris reminds Sarah and another graduate student about an upcoming departmental party and encourages the two students to attend. Dr. Morris pulls Sarah aside to tell her privately that she should refrain from referring to her significant other as such since it may make people uncomfortable. [01:40]