When calculating the number of allegations which were seen by faculty, we only included those which were presented in ORI’s own data. However, we also showed ORI’s case closure numbers, since ORI also reported those.
ORI closure numbers were not, and should not have been, included in our estimate of the number of allegations seen by faculty. The reason is that they do not represent independent cases. Cases which were seen by faculty either as inquiries or investigations are subsequently processed by ORI and closed.
However, from the data we present in the table, it can be seen that the number of ORI closures is actually very small compared to the number processed by faculty, even over a period of more than a decade. (1)
Therefore, it appears that it can take many years for ORI to close cases. Why the flow-through of cases from faculty review to ORI closure is so low remains a point for consideration.
(1) Two lines of Table 1 were left blank because the ORI dataset did not provide relevant information for those two years (1998 and 1999). Some of the missing categorical information might be estimated by comparison of the Federal Register for announcements of misconduct findings during those years with the line totals provided by ORI. Doing so suggests that the number of case closures in 1998 and 1999 might have been high relative to other years. ORI is revising its dataset as of mid-2016.
