Mandatory
- All persons included by name on the Institutional Review Board (IRB) application for a study that involves human subjects must become certified.
- Some university students are required to take the human research subject protection certificate training as a course requirement.
This includes volunteers, students, and support personnel. Following IRB review and approval, no approval documents will be released to the principal investigator and no research can commence until all application-listed members of the study team hold current training certificates.
Optional but strongly recommended
Anyone else not named on the IRB application but involved in the design, conduct, reporting, support, or administration of research that involves human subjects or their data should consider becoming certified.
Administrative secretaries, data entry personnel, clinical personnel, accounting and business managers, technicians; workers in a huge range of job titles have all received human studies education certification.
Please note: Training and certificate status is maintained identically for “optional” learners as for “mandatory” learners.