“IRB” stands for Institutional Review Board. According to Brooklyn College’s site, IRB was “created to carry out the activities required to ensure the protection of rights, privacy and welfare of all human participants in research as mandated by the federal, state and institutional policies.” All students who require the participation of human subjects in their research must get IRB approval before doing so.

The first step is to complete the online CITI course on IRBnet. Do this ASAP as the process can take some time.

***NOTE: CUNY will be transitioning to a new HRPP/IRB submission software program, Ideate, in early February 2015. Please go to http://www.cuny.edu/research/compliance/human-subjects-research-1.html for more info.

The next step is to contact the Research Compliance Specialist on your campus. At Brooklyn College, that person is Natalie Wright. BC students should visit http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/about/administration/provost/irb.php for an overview.

For more information, check out this IRB PowerPoint, created by former ITF Andy Newman.