For certain low-risk student projects (which may be within a course's curriculum or a group of honors projects), a faculty member may coordinate the project proposals and liaise with the IRB to create a group submission, as outlined below. The IRB supports all natures of research projects, but please note that certain projects necessitating a higher level of review may be challenging to carry out within a 10-week term. The information below will assist the planning process and help your students obtain IRB permission more quickly.
NOTE: only the IRB may provide a final determination for students to begin their projects. Faculty members may not give permission without a written IRB determination. The IRB cannot retroactively issue a determination under any circumstances. Students who initiate projects prior to a written IRB determination are engaging in research misconduct and cannot use the data for any publication or presentations.
Before you initiate this process, we encourage you to contact the irb@seattleu.edu with a brief description of the nature of the student projects, as the steps below may not be necessary or applicable for your particular course.
Before determining project methodologies or approaches, both faculty and students should complete human participant training. Details regarding registration for the CITI Training Program and the required and supplementary modules for our IRB are provided on our Human Participant Research Training site.
When students have determined their topic and approach, the faculty member will collect the following information for each student project:
Then, the faculty member will
To avoid any processing delays, be sure all above information is included for each project.
The IRB will evaluate each proposed project in the context of potential risks and human participant protections, then communicate determinations to the faculty member.
Note: Timelines approximate ~ delays may occur surrounding University breaks, holidays, and during the first and final weeks of the term.
IRB evaluation and permission for compiled student course projects typically takes 3-4 business days for projects that meet exemption criteria. Projects that require further clarification or information typically take 1-3 business days more.
Projects for which the IRB requests the Application for Exemption may take 2-4 business days to process.
Initial IRB review for an expedited research protocol (not including required revisions and time to approval) usually takes 10-12 business days.
Note: Individual research activities, including recruitment, may not begin until each project has received written IRB permission from the IRB.