Simple Steps to IRB Success
Welcome! We are glad that you are here, and are excited to collaborate with you on your future human subjects research projects. Below, we have put together pages for the most useful things you might need to know as you prepare a protocol for submission to the IRB.
Make sure you have completed CITI training and your affiliation has been transferred to USU. All researchers who interact with participants or access their identifiable data must first be certified via CITI. Current CITI certification needs to be maintained for the duration of all human subjects research, and certification must be renewed every three years.
If you have already completed CITI training with another institution, you are able to easily transfer your training to Utah State University. After logging in, select “Add an Affiliation” under your listed Institutional Courses and add Utah State University. This allows our staff to look up your CITI Training. We cannot accept a Refresher Course without being able to verify completion of a Basic Course, so this is an important step in having your training registered appropriately at USU.
If you have completed training in the past, be sure to check that your CITI training is still up to date. If it has expired within the last year, be sure to take the Refresher Course. If your CITI Training has been expired for longer than a year, get started on the Basic Course by following the instructions on our Required Training page.
Returning users may simply log in to CITI and complete their training or refresher courses. If prior login information has been forgotten, click on the “forgot login information” link to recover login information. The USU IRB does not house CITI Account information; that is directly between the user and CITI.
If you need to complete CITI training for the first time you will need to take the Human Research Curriculum Basic Course, Group 1: Social and Behavioral Research Investigators and Key Personnel or Group 2: Clinical Researchers (step-by-step registration instructions with screen shots) with an overall score of 80+%.
Please note that all investigators on a protocol (including student researchers) must have valid CITI training before a protocol can be reviewed. Check the status of your team members' training!
Are you new faculty at USU, but still have some open Human Subjects Research protocols at your old institution? Unfortunately, there is no real way to transfer an IRB Approval. The role of PI on a human subjects research protocol must be maintained by someone at the institution which granted the approval.
If you would like to remain the PI on your projects, you will need to submit the research project for review by the USU IRB. For more details on this process, jump to the Kuali Protocols section.
A second option is to delegate the role of PI to someone else at your previous institution. This would allow you to maintain your open protocols at your previous institution and continue working under that existing approval. If you were able to identify another faculty member at your previous institution who is willing to maintain oversight of your active studies there, you could amend your active protocols to designate a new PI. If you wanted to, you could remain an investigator on the project, but you would have to be listed as an non-[Institution’s name] researcher. Then, we could complete a Reliance Agreement with your previous institution to cede our review of the project to their IRB.
As of February 2020, Kuali Protocols is our protocol management system. You can submit human subjects research protocols, Reliance Agreements, Non-Human Subjects Research Determinations and more, all from an easy-to-use online dashboard.
Got questions? Check out our Kuali FAQs for more info or schedule a consultation with one of our coordinators (above!) to discuss your ongoing research project and how best to document continuing research activities in your protocol application.
Note: Kuali Koala, the unofficial mascot for Kuali Protocols on the right, has nothing to do with Kuali Products. We just made it and like it.
AAHRPP Accreditation
Utah State University’s Human Research Protection Program, which includes its Institutional Review Board, is fully accredited by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs. AAHRPP Accreditation means that Utah State University implements many best practices to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of participants who contribute to our institution’s research. For new faculty, that sometimes corresponds to unfamiliar review standards – not harder or more difficult ones. We’d love to meet with you (see Consultations, above!) to discuss your project in more depth and how your research can be supported by these best practices.