Human Subjects Review Board [from the Ph.D. Handbook]

Indiana University's Office of Research Compliance is responsible for ensuring that all research on University campuses is conducted in a responsible manner and adheres to federal and state laws as well as University policies.

All research involving human subjects must be approved by the institutional review board (IRB) on the appropriate University campus before recruitment of subjects or data collection can begin. On the Bloomington campus, the Human Subjects Committee (HSC) must review and approve all research projects involving human subjects. If your research involves the use of human subjects, you must submit to the HSC a form requesting review and approval of a research protocol involving human subjects. The HSC website provides access to application forms as well as definitions of terms, sample consent forms, and other information that will be of help to you in the application process.

In addition, you must provide documentation that you have successfully passed the Protection of Human Research Participants Certification Test. The Office of Research Compliance provides two web-based tutorials that meet Federal requirements for human subjects research: one for biomedical research and one for non-biomedical research. Because of the broad coverage of the human research certification test, you should plan to review both tutorials before taking the test.