The purpose of The Research Mentoring Certificate is to increase the capacity of the University of Utah to provide high-quality research mentoring. Participation in the program is available to University of Utah graduate students, post-docs, staff, and faculty. The certificate involves six (6) classes presented in Canvas course format, accompanied by five live meetings. 

RED 710 | Introduction to Research Mentoring

RED 711 | Establishing Expectations and Maintaining Effective Communication

RED 712 | Assessing Understanding and Fostering Independence

RED 713 | Fostering Academic Literacies

RED 714 | Research and Mentoring Ethics

RED 715 | Promoting Mentees’ Career Development

The meetings use case studies to demonstrate issues that may arise in mentor-mentee relationships and are intended to facilitate conversation and provide an opportunity for participants to work through problems collaboratively. Topics covered in the online classes and the case studies are organized around core mentor training competencies grounded in academic research (e.g. Pfund et al. 2013) and modified based on participant feedback and facilitator expertise. These competencies include: 

• Maintaining effective communication
• Aligning expectations
• Assessing understanding
• Fostering independence
• Cultivating academic literacies
• Research and mentoring ethics
• Promoting professional development

Throughout the certificate programs, we will develop our capacities to mentor the diverse undergraduate researchers with whom we work.

Upon successful completion of the program, staff, graduate students, and post-docs will be eligible to serve as mentors for the purposes of the Office of Undergraduate Research’s funding programs.

How To Access REd Classes and Enrollment Details

You can access the classes at the University of Utah's Office of Research Education Research Administrator Portal Links to an external site., Principal Investigator (PI) - Faculty Portal Links to an external site., Scholar Portal Links to an external site., or REd Curriculum Links to an external site.. If you click one of the classes it will take you to its page, with a description of the class, the instructors, and the links to the Canvas Catalog to register for the live or online version.

If you click the link to register for the Online class, it will automatically take you to the Canvas Catalog website, where you can enroll for the class. Please make sure to log in by using your uNID and password.

Once you have enrolled, Catalog will send you an email confirming your enrollment. You can then access the class you registered for by any of these three (3) options:

1. “Access Your Course” through that confirmation email,

2. You can visit your Student Dashboard (within Catalog) to begin the class,

3. Or you may access the class you registered for within your Canvas Dashboard (Canvas is where each class is hosted).

Please see the REd Instruction Links to an external site.regarding more details on how to find, register for, and complete the Research Education Synchronous and Asynchronous classes. An official hardcopy of your certificate can be processed and delivered to a University address upon request. 

There are options for discipline specific research ethics courses. For more information, please contact REd at researcheducation@utah.edu. We are here to help “U”.