CITI – Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative

CITI training does not need to be completed in one sitting, but it must be fulfilled in the first month of graduate or postdoctoral work.

To access CITI training, please visit: https://www.citiprogram.org/Shibboleth.sso/Login?target=https://www.citiprogram.org/Secure/Welcome.cfm&entityID=urn:mace:incommon:uiowa.edu.

1. Once logged in, choose Responsible Conduct of Research (CITI) under “Training.”
2. Click “Add a course or update your learner groups”.
3. Check box “I am required to complete Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training”.
4. Check box most appropriate to your role in research.
5. Option to take pre-test
6. Agree to Assurance Statement
7. Complete all of the following modules regardless of the type of research that you conduct (you must score at least 80% for each quiz, and should retake any quizzes for which you do not score 80%):

  • Responsible Conduct of Research: Course Introduction
  • Research Misconduct
  • Data Management
  • Authorship
  • Peer Review
  • Mentoring
  • Using Animal Subjects in Research
  • Conflicts of Interest
  • Collaborative Research
  • Research Involving Human Subjects
  • Responsible Conduct of Research: Course Conclusion

To view a pictorial version of these instructions, click here.



In addition to the Collaborative Instructional Training Initiative (CITI) web training, there are approved discipline-specific courses in which graduate students and postdoctoral researchers must enroll. All new RCR courses and content must be approved by the Graduate College prior to the semester in which they are taught to be eligible to count as an approved course. In addition, all course syllabi are audited yearly to ensure they continue to meet federally required content standards. These courses must cover these content areas regardless of discipline:

  1. Data acquisition and analysis; data management, sharing and ownership; laboratory tools (e.g., tools for analyzing data and creating or working with digital images; record keeping practices (including methods such as electronic laboratory notebooks); secure and ethical data use; data confidentiality
  2. Mentor/Trainee responsibilities and relationships including how to be a good mentor
  3. Publication practices and responsible authorship
  4. Peer review (including the responsibility for maintaining confidentiality and security in peer review) 
  5. Collaborative research (including collaborations with industry and investigators and institutions from other countries) 
  6. Human Subjects Protections (policies and practices) 
  7. Animal Welfare (regulations, policies, and safe laboratory practices involving live vertebrate animals) 
  8. Research misconduct and policies for handling misconduct 
  9. Conflict of interest (personal, professional, and financial; and conflict of commitment (time allocation, effort, reporting requirements, or other research resources) 
  10. Safe research environments (e.g., those that promote inclusion and are free of sexual, racial, ethnic, disability and other forms of harassment); discussion of increased scrutiny by federal funding agencies 
  11. The scientist as a responsible member of society; contemporary ethical issues in biomedical research; and the environmental and societal impacts of scientific research. 
  12. Potential security threats and federal export controls

OPTIONAL TOPICS:

  1. Financial Management
  2. Research Safety
  3. Reproducibility
  4. Foreign Influence. International engagement in research (i.e., undue foreign influence in research), including protection of IP, training on export control policies and regulations, foreign travel security (for work related purposes), insider threat awareness, and ensuring cyber security; foreign talent recruitment program

Please contact Shelly Campo in the Graduate College at 335-2136 for more information.

Courses for Graduate Students

ANTH:7270 - Outline of Responsible Conduct of Research in Anthropology (open to graduate students in Anthropology, or by special permission)

BIOL:7270 (7090) - Principles of Scholarly Integrity (open to graduate students in the Department of Psychological and Brain Science and the Department of Biology or by special permission, Fall only, course is cross listed with PSY 7090)

BMED 7270 (Fall) and BMED 7271 (Spring) - Scholarly Integrity/Responsible Conduct of Research 1 and 2. – To meet compliance requirements you MUST TAKE BOTH BMED courses, but the order does not matter.

BIOS:7270 – Scholarly Integrity In Biostatistics (open to graduate students in the Department of Biostatistics or by special permission, Spring only)

CHEM:7270 (5092) - Ethics in Chemical Sciences (open to graduate students in the Department of Chemistry or by special permission, Spring only)

CPH:7270 (7604) – Principles of Scholarly Integrity: Public Health (open to graduate students in the College of Public Health, College of Nursing, or by special permission, MUST TAKE BOTH CPH courses to meet compliance, but the order does not matter)

CS:5980:001 – Topics in Computer Science III: Computing Research Ethics (Spring only)

EES:7270:0001 – Geologic Orientation, Scholarly Integrity, and Responsible Conduct of Research (Fall only)

ENGR:7270 - Engineering Ethics (open to graduate students in the Department of Engineering or by special permission, Fall only)

GEOG5050 Research and Writing in Geography, Fall only)

GEOG:5070 – Special Topics: Responsible Conduct of Research (open to graduate students in the Department of Geography or by special permission)

HHP 6020 Research Methods and Ethics (Fall only)

PHYS:7270 - Ethics in Physics for Graduate Students (open to graduate students in the Department of Physics or by special permission, Fall only)

POLI:7270 (5002) - Responsible research in political science (Spring only)

PSQF:7270 - Responsible Conduct of Educational Research and Evaluation (Spring only)

PSY:7270 - Principles of Scholarly Integrity (open to graduate students in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Department of Biology or by special permission, Fall only, course is cross listed with BIOL 7270)

SOC:7270/7271 – Scholarly Professionalism & Integrity I & II (open to graduate students in the Department of Sociology or by special permission, MUST TAKE BOTH Fall and Spring, formerly Sociology:5000)

Courses for Postdoctoral Researchers (job codes FP01/FP02 only) and Faculty with NIH K-series Awards

To enroll, postdocs and faculty must contact the course instructor to let them know you would like to be enrolled. Then, departments officially enroll postdocs and faculty via bulk upload in the first week of class (sent to reg-maui-support@uiowa.edu for processing).  Faculty must also receive status as a non-degree student to be enrolled. The application can be found at https://grad.admissions.uiowa.edu/apply/applying-nondegree-graduate-student. An application fee is required.

BIOL:7604*- Principles of Scholarly Integrity: Psychology (open to all postdocs in the Departments of Biology and Psychological and Brain Sciences or by special permission, Fall and Spring, course cross-listed with PSY:7604)

BIOS:7604* – Scholarly Integrity In Biostatistics (open to postdocs in the Department of Biostatistics or by special permission, Spring only)

BMED 7604 (Fall) and BMED 7605 (Spring) - Scholarly Integrity/Responsible Conduct of Research 1 and 2. – To meet compliance requirements you must take both courses, but the order does not matter (open to postdocs and faculty).

CHEM:7604* - Ethics in Chemical Sciences for Postdocs (open to all postdocs in the Department of Chemistry or by special permission, Spring only)

CPH 7604 (Fall) and CPH 7605 (Spring) – Principles of Scholarly Integrity: Public Health (open to postdocs and faculty in the College of Public Health, College of Nursing, or by special permission, MUST TAKE BOTH Fall and Spring)

CS:7604:0001 - Computing Research Ethics for Postdocs (Spring only)

EES:7604:0001 – Principles of Scholarly Integrity (Fall only)

ENGR:7604* - Engineering Ethics for Postdocs (open to all postdocs in the College of Engineering or by special permission, Fall only)

PHYS:7604* - Ethics in Physics for Postdocs (open to all postdocs in the Department of Physics or by special permission, Fall only)

POLI:7604 - Responsible Research in Political Science (Spring only)

PSQF:7604 - Responsible Conduct of Educational Research and Evaluation (Spring only)

PSY:7604*- Principles of Scholarly Integrity: Psychology (open to all postdocs in the Departments of Biology and Psychological and Brain Sciences or by special permission, Fall only, course cross-listed with BIOL:7604*)

*Postdoctoral researchers (job codes FP01 and FP02 only) and faculty with NIH K series awards who want to enroll in one of these courses should contact the course director.