Per institutional policy and federal regulations, any individual engaged in human subjects’ research (i.e., actively recruiting/identifying research participants, obtaining informed consent, collecting data, analyzing identifiable data, etc.) is required to complete human subjects’ research training; this includes community members/partners, who will be engaged in human subjects’ research.
A community member/partner is non-academic personnel (e.g., local government representatives, school system employees, members of a local religious organization, etc.), and are often included as research personnel in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR).
As members of the IRB protocol personnel roster, community members/partners must also complete human subjects’ research protection training to satisfy all IRB review and approval requirements.
PLEASE NOTE: Community members/partners, who have already completed human subjects’ research training through other institutions or sites, such as CITI, should provide the UCR PI with proof of completion (e.g., certificate of completion), so that the PI can provide this documentation to the IRB for review along with their other study materials.
For community research members/partners, who have not completed human subjects’ research training, it is recommended that they complete this requirement by taking the CIRTification Online course. This course is a free, web-based human research protections training program tailored specifically for community research members/partners.
The training includes an introduction to human subjects’ research as well as topics which are relevant to the roles and responsibilities that community members/partners undertake in research projects. Topics covered in the training include:
- Introduction to Research
- Research History
- Eligibility & Recruitment
- Informed Consent
- The Institutional Review Board (IRB)
- Collecting & Protecting Data
- Handling Issues in the Field
The training is available in English, Spanish, and Creole. Please note, the course takes around 4 hours to complete but can be taken over multiple sessions.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLETING CIRTIFICATION COURSE
Community Members/Partners should complete the following instructions to register for the CIRTification course:
- Go to https://training.ccts.uic.edu/
- Click “register (top right hand corner). Select “I am not from UIC.”
- Complete the registration form. When asked to select a site, select “University of California, Riverside”.
- Click “Register” to finish.
- Visit the Course Catalog. Information about CIRTification will appear. Click “Learn More” and “Enroll” to enroll in CIRTification.
- The Course available will be titled “CIRTification: Community Involvement in
Research Training”. - Once completed, send your certificate to the PI of the study you will be joining, so
that they can upload it to the Supporting Information section of the Kuali protocol.