The Research Environment Norm Inventory (RENI): A Study of Integrity in Research Administrative Systems

Abstract

University research administrators have been generally ignored in basic studies of research integrity. Hensley noted that research administrators are "essential... to the achievement of the specific missions of postsecondary institutions... and to science and the academic infrastructure". The following study sought to extend the scope of research on research integrity to research administrative structures with a new instrument called the Research Environment Norm Inventory or RENI. University research administrators and their professional association were targeted for data collection. Evidence suggested that research administration in the United States supports integrity in the research environment through: (1) respect for community; (2) respect for institutional boundaries; (3) professionalism; (4) respect for authority structures; (5) sensitivity to system conflicts. The study suggested that integrity structures are dictated largely by the institutional settings and environments.

Virtue blindness and hegemony: qualitative evidence of negotiated ethical frameworks in the social language of university research administration

“…Given that the constructs from the quantitative study illustrated very high reliability [5]; we concluded we had a good group for the text analysis as well.…”

“…Domains 1-3 validate claims made in a quantitative evaluation we performed on the same population [5]. The strong norm structure of research administration, however, appears to be regularly threatened by the fifth domain, (5) political power, which is inhabited by prestigious faculty with tenure, top-down authority misalignment, and the power for some institutional members to circumvent the system.…”

“…These processes are illustrated by Table 1. We tested this framework from a quantitative standpoint and found it to be highly reliable [5]. The textual analysis revealed weaknesses that were not be detected in the quantitative study.…”

“…For instance, (1) University research administrative (URA) behavior is controlled by professional association [20]; (2) URA demonstrates a normative pattern of development along the theoretical professional continuum defined by Goode [20], (3) they are part of a complex professional system [1,14,26]; (4) they have a clear set of clients and stakeholders [15,16,25,33]; (5) there is evidence of strong group cohesiveness [6,34,40,41]; (6) the research administration field controls the entry and exit of members through education and certification [14,20,22,29]; and (7) research administrators have a well-defined body of knowledge [20].…”