Will non-Ohio State students, volunteers, or interns be helping with your IRB-approved human subjects research activities this summer? In this edition of Reliance Reflections, Jessica Mayercin-Johnson, ORRP’s program manager for reliance agreements and regulatory support, walks us through the nuts and bolts of ensuring your summer research collaborators are added to your study quickly and efficiently.
Ohio State requires that individuals engaged in research are added as external collaborators. Our office is here to help make the addition of your summer students as quick and easy as possible!
First things first: Are your summer students engaged in human subjects research?
Consult our Engagement Determination Tool for help! Not engaged? If so, no action is required on your part – your IRB materials do not need to reflect their involvement. If they are engaged, ORRP will facilitate Individual Investigator Agreements (also known as IIAs) for each collaborator.
The information in this post applies when the summer students will only be involved in the research for the duration of their summer term at Ohio State. If their involvement will continue once they’ve returned to their home institution in the fall, a different kind of IRB reliance agreement is necessary. Contact our reliance team at IRBAgreements@osu.edu for guidance if this is the case.
Obtaining Individual Investigator Agreements (IIAs)
Follow the steps below to add unaffiliated summer researchers to your study under an IIA.
- Principal investigators must first request a guest account for each student by logging in at http://my.osu.edu and completing the Guest Intake Process. This will create Ohio State credentials (name.#) for the summer students.
- Once their name.# is activated, summer students must complete the Office of Research registration to access Ohio State’s CITI training and electronic Conflict of Interest (eCOI) disclosure.
- Summer students must log in at http://go.osu.edu/CITI with their Ohio State credentials and complete two trainings: Human Subjects Protection (HSP) and Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training. Ohio State requires collaborators covered by IIAs to maintain active HSR and RCR training.
- Summer students must also complete an eCOI disclosure by logging in at http://go.osu.edu/coi.
Up next: Submit an amendment to any studies in which the summer students are engaged, and add them to the External Collaborators page of your application with their Ohio State name.#. You can add a preferred email address for the student if they will not be regularly using or checking their Ohio State email address. Be sure to upload a resume or CV for each student!
Did you know…?
ORRP has a suite of collaborative research tools to help you complete your Buck-IRB application! For summer research volunteers, refer to Scenario 4.
Once your amendment is in the pre-review screening process, a member of ORRP’s reliance team will confirm that the collaborator has completed the required training modules and eCOI disclosure, draft the IIA, and route the IIA to your summer student(s) for signature via DocuSign. The IIA must be complete before we move the submission for IRB review.
Questions? We’re here to help! Contact our reliance team at IRBAgreements@osu.edu for assistance or to request a collaborative research consultation!
About the author: Jessica Mayercin-Johnson, a Certified IRB Professional (CIP), assists researchers with their submissions, participates in educational outreach efforts, and is responsible for the implementation of local and national collaborative human subjects research agreements for non-exempt Ohio State research. She can be reached at mayercin-johnson.1@osu.edu or 614-688-1059.