Institutional review board
Human Research Protection Program
The Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) is responsible for safeguarding the rights and welfare of human participants in research. The HRPP subscribes to the basic ethical principles for the protection of human participants in research that underlie The Nuremberg Codes, The Helsinki Declaration, and The Belmont Report, and adheres to federal regulations published in The Federal Register, codified at Title 45 part 46, and to the information in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office for Protection of Research Risks (OPRR), 1993, edition of Protecting Human Research Subjects: Institutional Review Board Guidebook. These documents may be found on reserve in the Buley Library.
The HRPP's purview extends to: (1) all human research conducted by SCSU faculty, students, staff, or others who wish to conduct research under the auspices of SCSU; (2) all human research conducted on the SCSU campus or in cooperation with other research agencies and sites, regardless of whether the project is funded externally, internally or receives no funding support. Further, the HRPP is responsible for: (1) advancing a campus wide Culture of Compliance with federal human research protection regulations through education, training, records maintenance, and resource management; and, (2) maintaining and supporting an Institutional Review Board (IRB) which assures all SCSU human research conforms to mandated participant protections.
THE SCSU HRPP IRB |
The IRB, through human research protocol review assures that: (1) anticipated risks to human research participants are balanced by benefits to the individual and society; (2) selection of participants is just and equitable; (3) research designs are appropriate to protect human research participants; (4) anonymity, privacy, and confidentiality of participants is not compromised; and, (5) research participants have given knowledgeable, voluntary and autonomous consent to take part in the research.
The IRB reviews all new research project protocols, project continuances, and revisions in approved research, and renders decisions regarding: (1) exemption from IRB review and review level; (2) the need for protocol modification; (3) protocol approval; and, (4) protocol disapproval. In order to submit an application to the IRB for review, investigators must complete the IRB Application for Protocol Review, which may be obtained online at http://www.southernct.edu/grad/research/institutionalreviewboard/hrpp/or on a 3.5 floppy disk from The School of Graduate Studies Office. Please be advised that research participant recruitment may not begin until IRB approval has been obtained.
Course Instructor Review |
At SCSU, student human research participant activities which are considered to be below the level of Special Project research, and are completed in partial fulfillment of requirements for a course, may only need to be submitted to the course instructor for approval prior to the collection of data, provided the instructor has an approved Course Instructor Certification Form on file with the SCSU HRPP Institutional Review Board (IRB). Applications for course instructor certification may be obtained at the School of Graduate Studies office.
The IRB Newsletter Directory |
The IRB newsletter is published at the start of each regular academic term and more frequently as needed. The newsletter presents process and theoretical issues which may influence the construction of IRB application proposals. It is strongly recommended that principal investigators peruse these entries as they consider proposal development.
