Rationale and Background

Lack of experimental reproducibility has received considerable national attention since Amgen's Begley and Ellis fired their "shot heard round the world," in the journal Nature (Begley & Ellis, 2012), decrying the failure of reproducibility in cancer research. The NIH has responded and has required that training in factors that impact experimental reproducibility should be incorporated into science education (Collins and Tabak, 2014).

Training in Methods for Enhancing Reproducibility is integrated throughout the IMSD at UTSA training sequence, with training provided and overseen both by the institution and IMSD.

Institutional Training in Rigor and Reproducibility

UTSA has made training in methods for enhancing responsibility mandatory for those funded by NIH grants. Dr. Michelle Stevenson, Associate VP for Research Integrity, investigated developing a required institutional training series; however, the faculty she consulted desired to perform their own training in these areas. Dr. Stevenson and the faculty worked out an agreement which will require monthly monitoring and confirmation from the faculty on the training that they provide the individual students.

Dr. Stevenson has agreed to integrate the IMSD at UTSA students into this review. We will provide the trainee lists to her each semester and notify her about students who enter or leave the program.

The curriculum that Dr. Stevenson developed is included as "UTSA Experimental Rigor Training" in the Required Training Activities (RTA) appendix. The topics covered include:

  • Preparing your NIH Grant Proposal – NIH Guidelines
  • Improving Reproducibility in Research
  • Importance of Transparency
  • Blinding and Randomization
  • Biological and Technical Replicates
  • Sample Size, Outliers, and Exclusion Criteria
  • Integrating Sex into Research Design to Improve Scientific Rigor
  • Controls in Animal Studies for Rigor and Reproducibility
  • Group Randomized Trials in Public Health and Medicine

For most topics, Dr. Stevenson has developed a slide per topic. She includes a video, Instructors Guide and sample articles; with links to materials from a variety of sources, including the NIH Rigor & Reproducibility Training Modules, University of Alabama-Birmingham, NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, American Physiological Society and other sources.

In addition to Dr. Stevenson monitoring the research mentor's instruction, IMSD at UTSA will also do so on semester evaluations to both students and research mentors.

UTSA's Guidelines for Faculty-Required Experimental Rigor Training
More Information on UTSA and the Experimental Rigor Training