Ethics Training

If the introductory questions to the Trinity IRB online form require you to submit a complete application, then all members of your research team who will have access to individually-identifiable private data about living human participants must complete ethics training, and you (as the Principal Investigator) must collect information about their proof of completion to include with the IRB form. Team members may include your Co-Principal Investigator, Research Supervisor, or additional research personnel. But if these people will not have access to individual-level private research data, then they do not require ethics training.

As of 9/25/2018, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) no longer offers free online ethics training. Should you, or someone from your research team, have a current NIH Human Research Participants certificate (certificates are valid for 4 years from completion date), upload the PDF certificate to the Trinity IRB online form for each relevant member of your research team.

Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) training is available for either social-behavioral research or biomedical research. Insert the completion date on the Trinity IRB online form for each relevant member of your research team, and the Trinity IRB administrator will lookup to confirm. There are many trainings offered on CITI. Trinity’s IRB will accept either Social & Behavioral Research – Basic or Biomedical Research – Basic , and under limited circumstances, the Student Class Project course.

These three online courses are freely available to members of the Trinity community, and provide proof of successful completion that is valid for four (4) years. If you are submitting an IRB form with multiple research personnel, the Trinity IRB will accept either NIH or CITI training for each member of your team.

Budget a total of 1-3 hours to complete either training module, but you may stop at the end of a section and login again later  to complete your work.

CITI training instructions

Trinity College freely provides this training to our students, staff, and faculty. Guests who desire this option should contact the Trinity IRB administrator at irb@trincoll.edu. Budget 1-2 hours to register and complete this training.

      • In your web browser, go to CITI training at https://www.citiprogram.org
      • Register to create an account
      • In step 1: Select Your Organization Affiliation, type “Trinity College,” select it, and continue.
      • In steps 2-5, enter your name, your  email address, and choose a username and password, and optional demographic data. Select “No” for CEU course credit.
      • In step 6: Institutional email, insert your @trincoll.edu address. In Department, type the department/program of your course or research project. For Role in Research, the most common responses are “Principal Investigator” or “Co-Principal Investigator” or “Student Researcher.”
      • In step 7: Curriculum, choose among these options:

Option A: If you are faculty/staff/guest, OR your research will place participants at greater than minimal risk, OR will involve vulnerable populations, according to Trinity IRB definitions.

      • In Curriculum: Question 1: Human Subjects Research, select Social & Behavior Research Investigators (or Biomedical Research Investigators.
      • Skip all other questions on the remainder of this Curriculum page.
      • Click “Complete Registration” at the bottom of this page.
      • Click “Finalize Registration” on the next screen.
      • Under “Trinity College Courses” on the next screen, click on the training module that you must complete, titled Social & Behavioral Research – Basic/Refresher, as shown below (or Biomedical Research, if you selected that option).

Option B: If you are student and your research will NOT place participants at greater than minimal risk and will NOT involve vulnerable populations, according to Trinity IRB definitions.

      • In Curriculum: Question 1: Human Subjects Research, select Students conducting no more than minimal risk research.
      • Skip all other questions on the remainder of this Curriculum page.
      • Click “Complete Registration” at the bottom of this page.
      • Click “Finalize Registration” on the next screen.
      • Under “Trinity College Courses” on the next screen, click on the training module that you must complete, titled Students – Class Projects.

 

Option C: If you must complete IRB member training, check this button in Curriculum: Question 1 and follow similar instructions above.

      • To return to the Step 7: Curriculum page and modify your training options, select Add a Course or Update Learner Groups

Overall, when starting your CITI training module, you must agree to the Integrity Assurance Statement. Earn a score of at least 80% on all quizzes to successfully complete the course. You may retake quizzes as often as needed to improve your score. When finished, copy the completion date and insert into your IRB form for each relevant member of your research team. If you need to retrieve your completion date, log into the CITI training website with your username and password.