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Summary: What to Do

Informed Consent

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Training and Certification

Ongoing education in the ethical treatment of research participants, the components of informed consent, and the handling of research materials and data is an important component of research and scholarship. We require that all investigators - especially student investigators - involved in research undergo formal training in current thought and issues in this area.

Training is available on-line through the National Institutes of Health.

• Go to the Human Participant Protections Education for Research Teams page sponsored by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health.

• Enter the course and register with the site.
  • This on-line tutorial takes approximately two hours to complete.

 

• At the end of the course, make sure you print out 2 copies of the COMPLETION CERTIFICATE. As part of the process, you will be asked to fill out an on-line evaluation. Be stubborn. Keep going. Make sure you print out a copy of the certificate before you log off. This certificate is required to document course completion.

Once you have completed training, send the certificate to the IRB. We will keep copies on files. You need undergo training only once.

More information . . .

There is an excellent book on ethics written by the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) and the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences and Education (BCSSE) called Protecting Participants and Facilitating Social and Behavioral Sciences Research (2003). It is available in its entirety ONLINE or you can order a copy of the book. It has good practical suggestions on how to enhance your research and protect your subjects and is a great thing to read while you are in the proces sof designing your research.

There is a great deal of information available on the ethical treatment of human research participants, including how to use accessible language in consent forms, past ethics conventions, and federal guidelines. Links to some of these sources are available through the Penn State Hershey IRB.