Two funding agencies that gave NIU $3.1 million in 1988 ordered the university to establish research misconduct policies.

The National Science Foundation and the Public Health Service asked NIU to make the research policies by Jan. 1, 1990, in a nationwide effort to hold universities accountable for faculty research.

“It’s a good idea for the university to have its own policies for these types of situations,” said Jerrold Zar, associate provost for graduate studies.

Zar said he proposed a 10-page document defining research misconduct, setting up a seven-person committee and outlining procedures for investigations.

Research misconduct includes using falsified data, plagiarism, using other people’s ideas, using unethical methods, breaking federal and NIU research regulations and misusing funds.

The document will be discussed by the NIU Graduate Council and the University Council on Feb. 14.

The agencies’ demand stems from publicly exposed incidents of falsifying research data and plagiarism at several universities over the last five years, said Brent Wholeben, NIU assistant dean of the college of education.

Wholeben also said, to his knowledge, NIU has a perfect record for research and rewriting the policy is a safeguard to prevent problems before they occur.

“We’ve had policies regarding research misconduct before, but this is a way of making policy more specific according to NSF requests,” Wholben said.

Edwin Simpson, director of NIU Faculty Development, said research is a vital responsibility because NIU is a major graduate university.

“Departments are generally supportive for people to do quality research and hopefully they would not pressure faculty into unethical practices,” Simpson said.

“At NIU, the climate is such that (academic misconduct) would be an exceptional case,” he said.

Zar’s proposed committee consists of five voting tenured faculty members, three non-voting members and himself, as a non-voting member.