RCRF (CASRAI)

Responsible Conduct of Research Certification — Foundation

LevelFoundationRCRRCRF (CASRAI)

30 h

Nominal

Self-paced study

Lessons

9 modules

Domains

Exam blueprint

Exam items

Per attempt

70%

Pass mark

Fixed, uncurved

Retake wait

Days

What you earn

The credential itself

Pass the examination and CASRAI issues this certificate and the post-nominal RCRF (CASRAI), signed by the Programme Director and verifiable by anyone, permanently, from the code on its face.

CASRAI Certification

Certificate of Professional Competence

This is to certify that

Dr. Amelia R. Hartley

has completed the prescribed programme of study and passed the examination in

Responsible Conduct of Research — Foundation

and is admitted to the designationRCRF (CASRAI)

Verify atcasrai.org/verify/CASRAI-RCR-2026-LAXA3I

Specimen. Issued as a signed PDF and as a machine-readable Open Badge; the holder and code shown are illustrative.

How it appears on your CV

Certifications

RCRF (CASRAI) — Responsible Conduct of Research, Foundation

CASRAI·Issued Mar 2026·Credential ID CASRAI-RCR-2026-LAXA3I

casrai.org/verify/CASRAI-RCR-2026-LAXA3I

Every certificate is issued under the signature of Dr. Diana Nieves Castro, MD, Programme Director of CASRAI Certification, who sets the syllabus, blueprint and pass mark for this credential.

It certifies that its holder passed the CASRAI examination for this course on the date shown, scored against the blueprint and pass mark published on this page — and anyone can confirm it from the verification code, without an account and without contacting us.

About this credential

What it covers

Body of knowledge

Exam blueprint

The exam is assembled to these weights on every attempt. They are published before purchase because a blueprint you cannot see is not a blueprint.

Domains and weights8 domains · 45 scored items
Domain	Weight	Items
Foundations, frameworks and governance of responsible conduct1	10%≈ 5 items	≈ 5
Research misconduct: definitions, boundaries, and the researcher's position2	14%≈ 6 items	≈ 6
Data acquisition, management, ownership and sharing3	13%≈ 6 items	≈ 6
Authorship, publication practice and peer-review ethics4	16%≈ 7 items	≈ 7
Conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment5	10%≈ 5 items	≈ 5
Mentoring, trainee responsibilities and safe research environments6	12%≈ 5 items	≈ 5
Human participants and animal welfare — researcher-level overview7	13%≈ 6 items	≈ 6
Collaborative and international research, research security, and AI disclosure8	12%≈ 5 items	≈ 5
Total	100%	45

Item counts are approximate. Each attempt draws a fresh form to the weights above, so the exact number of items per domain varies between attempts.

Syllabus

9 modules, 9 lessons

Every lesson and every learning outcome is listed. The lesson bodies open on enrolment; nothing else about the course is withheld.

9 modules · 9 lessons · 30 h

Lesson material opens once you are enrolled. The full syllabus and every learning outcome are shown here so you can judge the coverage before you pay.

Module 1
1
1 lesson · 2.5 h
1. Locked.What responsible conduct actually is2.5 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Differentiate research ethics, research integrity and research compliance, and classify a stated obligation into the correct category.
  - Identify the source of a given obligation (statute, funder term, institutional policy, journal policy, disciplinary norm) from a scenario.
  - Locate the governing code of conduct for a named national research system and state whether it is binding, contractual or advisory.
  - Explain, with an example, how conduct can be lawful, funded and published and still breach research integrity.
Module 2
2
1 lesson · 4 h
1. Locked.Misconduct, error, and everything in between4 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - State the regulatory definition of research misconduct and apply it to classify described acts as fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or none.
  - Distinguish misconduct from honest error and from differences of scientific opinion, citing the exclusion in the definition itself.
  - Identify the three elements required for a finding and explain the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.
  - Recognise questionable research practices that fall outside the FFP definition and explain which standard they breach instead.
  - Describe a researcher's obligations as a witness, complainant or respondent, including record preservation and the prohibition on retaliation.
  - Outline, at awareness level, the assessment → inquiry → investigation sequence and the respondent's right to comment.
Module 3
3
1 lesson · 3.5 h
1. Locked.The research record: data, evidence, images3.5 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Distinguish raw, processed and derived data, metadata and the research record, and determine what must be retained and for how long.
  - Maintain a research record adequate to reconstruct the work, and evaluate a sample notebook against that standard.
  - Determine data ownership, custodianship and access rights in a scenario.
  - Differentiate permissible image processing from impermissible manipulation and detect common manipulation signatures in a prepared exercise.
  - Determine what may be shared, under what conditions, and identify the constraints that require controlled rather than open access.
Module 4
4
1 lesson · 4 h
1. Locked.Authorship and contributorship4 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Apply a stated authorship criterion set to a described contribution set and determine who qualifies as an author.
  - Identify gift, ghost, coercive and mutual-support authorship and explain the breach in each.
  - Assign CRediT roles to contributions and construct a contributor statement for a multi-author paper.
  - Differentiate authorship, acknowledgement and group/collaboration listing.
  - Design an authorship agreement for a project not yet begun.
Module 5
5
1 lesson · 2.5 h
1. Locked.Publication practice and peer-review ethics2.5 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Identify duplicate, redundant and salami publication and simultaneous submission, and state the acceptable alternative in each case.
  - Discharge a peer reviewer's obligations and recognise the breaches: confidentiality violation, undisclosed conflict, appropriation of ideas, undisclosed delegation, abusive critique.
  - Differentiate correction, expression of concern and retraction, and explain why a retraction is not by itself a misconduct finding.
  - Evaluate a journal against predatory-publishing indicators.
  - Apply journal AI-disclosure requirements to a described manuscript.
Module 6
6
1 lesson · 3 h
1. Locked.Conflicts of interest and of commitment3 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Distinguish conflict of interest from conflict of commitment and classify described situations correctly.
  - Differentiate actual, potential and perceived conflicts and justify why perceived conflicts are disclosable.
  - Determine what must be disclosed to the institution, the funder, the journal and the ethics committee, recognising that these are four distinct obligations.
  - Select a proportionate management strategy from disclosure through recusal to prohibition.
Module 7
7
1 lesson · 3.5 h
1. Locked.Mentoring and the research environment3.5 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Articulate the reciprocal obligations of mentor and mentee and construct a mentoring compact.
  - Develop an individual development plan and use it as a mentoring instrument.
  - Analyse the effect of power asymmetry on authorship, disclosure, consent and complaint within a research group.
  - Recognise harassment, bullying, discrimination and retaliation, and identify the applicable reporting routes.
  - Negotiate what a departing trainee may take with them.
Module 8
8
1 lesson · 3.5 h
1. Locked.Human participants and animal welfare3.5 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Determine whether an activity is likely to require ethics review and explain why the researcher does not make the final determination.
  - List the essential elements of informed consent and distinguish the consent process from the consent form.
  - Recognise populations and circumstances requiring additional protections.
  - Identify when secondary use of data or specimens triggers review.
  - Apply the 3Rs to a described animal protocol and state the requirement for prior approval.
  - Recognise biosafety obligations and dual-use research of concern.
Module 9
9
1 lesson · 3.5 h
1. Locked.Collaboration, international research, security and AI3.5 h · Locked
  On completion you will be able to
  - On completion the learner can:
  - Construct a collaboration governance agreement covering authorship, data, IP, publication rights and dispute resolution.
  - Determine what international affiliations, appointments and support must be disclosed, and to whom.
  - Recognise research-security risk indicators and escalate appropriately.
  - Identify when export control or sanctions may apply and escalate rather than self-assess.
  - Evaluate an international collaboration against fairness and equity expectations.
  - Apply AI-disclosure requirements across the research lifecycle and identify contexts where AI use is prohibited.

Assessment

How the exam works

The exam is closed-book and multiple choice. Each attempt draws a fresh form to the domain weights above, so no two attempts are the same paper and no answer key circulates. The pass mark is 70% and is fixed — there is no curve, no quota and no adjustment by cohort.

Scoring is immediate. You are shown your overall result and, for every item, the option you chose, the correct option and the reasoning behind it — whether you passed or not. A failed attempt may be retaken after 90 days. The wait exists so a retake is a second attempt at the material rather than a second attempt at remembering the paper.

Forms are assembled to the blueprint above or not at all: where a domain cannot yet be sampled to that standard, the exam declines to start rather than issue an unbalanced paper. Your material and progress are never affected, and there is no time limit on when you sit.

Passing candidates are issued a certificate with a verification code. Anyone can check that code on our public verification page without an account and without contacting us.

Certifying authority

Signed by Dr. Diana Nieves Castro, MD

CASRAI’s certification programme is academically and medically directed by Dr. Diana Nieves Castro, MD, Programme Director, who sets the syllabus and blueprint for this credential and signs every certificate issued under it.

CASRAI has maintained the terminology and reporting standards of research administration for over a decade. It assumed leadership of the CRediT contributor-roles taxonomy in 2014 and carried it through to adoption as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, now in use by publishers, funders and institutions worldwide. This examination is drawn from that body of work.

What the credential certifies: that its holder passed the CASRAI examination for this course on the date shown, scored against the blueprint and pass mark published above — verifiable by anyone, permanently, from the code on its face.