Veteran Earle Holland at Ohio State University has come to the defense of Harvard on his blog, after Harvard has suffered a pummeling in the news for not commenting much and not producing any documents about the three-year investigation of researcher Marc Hauser. (The Boston Globe broke the story, and followed up with "Harvard keeps mum as scientists call for transparency in probe.")
Holland says that Harvard is being careful because the university is trying to comply with federal law that mandates confidentiality during a scientific misconduct case.
I'm of two minds on this one. I think Holland is right about what the law says and that the researchers deserve protection. On the other hand, universities have been able to say more in the past, with the cooperation of the Office of Research Integrity. It's a question of how much and when. Seems odd that it's been three years. Is there actually a report somewhere? Under what circumstances would it be released, or if it finds little, a statement of exoneration? We'll be interested to see what happens as this one plays out.
Phil Hilts
Comments
Phil:
The policy at ORI, based on our past experience, is to neither confirm nor deny investigations are underway until after ORI has agreed with an institution's own investigation, or until after ORI did its own.
After investigations have been done and ORI agrees to an institution's actions (in the result of a conclusion of scientific misconduct!), then ORI will publish its findings in its annual reports, and information on the case is usually available under FOIa. In those cases, institutions are then released from the federal confidentiality constraints. Whether they release the information then is determined either by institutional policy or state/local public records laws. The final report the institution made to ORI is probably requestable under FOIa at that point, even if the institution declines to release it. Public institutions usually will release such documents on request. Private institutions may not face the same requirements.
But in the case where an accused investigator is cleared by an investigation, nearly all information pertaining to the case is kept confidential. ORI may report generally on the case, omitting identifiable information, but the details are withheld. This safeguards those who've been found innocent -- in effect -- of the charges. There is no statement of exoneration since, if the policies are followed, and the investigation is never made public, no such cleansing is necessary.
As to the other questions, I have known investigations to have lasted longer than two years so three years isn't remarkable. If NSF or NIH funds were involved, the institution would have submitted a report to ORI, regardless.
The ORI website is at (http://ori.hhs.gov/).
In cases we've been involved in, we have been emphatic in making sure we explained the policies to inquiring reporters. Harvard could have perhaps been a bit better about doing that.
Earle Holland