Institutional Review Board

​The role of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) is to encourage ethical treatment of human subjects in research.

IRB’s exist to ensure that risks to subjects and potential gain of scientific knowledge are balanced and fair. Institutional Review Boards have three goals:

  1. To educate the community about acceptable treatment of research volunteers.
  2. To foster discussion about the balance between risks to participants and benefits of research, and
  3. To review ongoing research to ensure it complies with acceptable practices and standards.

 

 

Institutional Review Boards and Federal Regulations

 

The IRB is an administrative body established by the shared governance system at Adrian College. It implements the Code of Federal Regulations established by the Office of Health and Human Services which provides guidelines in protecting the rights and welfare of human subjects in research. The federal regulations guiding IRB policy can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.html. The IRB board is assigned the task of providing information and establishing policies and procedures necessary to ensure that human subjects participating in research conducted by Adrian College faculty, staff and students are protected from undo harm.

 

The IRB at Adrian College

 

All research carried out by Adrian College faculty, staff and students must be carried out in accordance with policies. There are three categories of human subject research:

 

  • Exempt
  • Expedited
  • Full review
  • To determine which category your project falls under click here.
  • Before data collection begins on a project involving human subjects, the IRB must review proposed methods and procedures that will be used. This includes proposals for the following:
  • Faculty research
  • Senior projects
  • Research conducted outside the classrooms such as independent or individualized studies
  • Class projects that serve as pilot studies, or will be presented outside the classroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After approval of the project, data can be collected for one year, renewable. Once a project is started, procedures should not be modified. If changes are necessary, an amendment must be filed with changes. Approval of changes must be received by the IRB before data collection can resume.

Training & Certification

Each Investigator and co-investigator should complete this on-line training program concerning ethics in research, http://phrp.nihtraining.com/users/login.php. Include documentation of completion with each proposal.

Deadlines for Submitting Proposals

Each proposal must be read by the IRB Chair, be reviewed by select members of the committee and discussed in a full committee. This ensures careful consideration of each proposal.  Questions about the process should be directed to the IRB Chair.

Proposal Due Dates

 

  • September 14, 2012
  • October 12, 2012
  • November 15, 2012

Members of the IRB

Members

  • Suzanne Helfer, Chair
  • Tina Claiborne 
  • Janet Pietrowski 
  • James Spence 
  • Melissa Freshcorn 

Alternates

  • Adam Coughlin
  • Nathan Goetting
    • Files & Links