Starting in December – IRB Office Hours

To help serve the research community better, the IRB has dedicated time to “IRB Office Hours.” What is this you ask? Think of it in the same way that a faculty member has time set aside to meet with students on a regular basis. Not only can you call, email, or schedule an appointment to discuss your study with someone, now you can just “drop in” if you have questions. Starting in December, the 1st and 3rd Fridays from 1:00-2:00 will be open sessions for people to come by the office to have your questions answered or to get assistance with a specific issue. There is no sign-up and no appointment is needed. We’ve also posted a calendar on our “Education” page so you can see upcoming Office Hours dates and other events hosted by the IRB.

(Updated) Did you know…

that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a final rule that requires institutional review boards (IRBs) to register through a system maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)? While the FDA’s requirement may be new, Vanderbilt’s IRBs have already been registered with HHS for quite a while in accordance with our Federalwide Assurance (FWA). If your sponsor is asking you if your IRB is registered, please direct them to THIS LINK and have them search for “Vanderbilt.”

Did you know…

That you can now check the current training status of key study personnel (KSP) within DISCOVR-E before you add them to your study and find out their training has expired!!

Did you know…

That the IRB recently created a blog to keep the Vanderbilt research community updated?  You can subscribe to the blog by clicking on the RSS links (entries and/or comments) at the bottom of the page.  All of the information posted in the blog will be delivered directly to you and you can make comments in response to the entries.  You will need to use Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 or higher, or an RSS reader such as Google Reader.  If you need help subscribing, please check with your IT support or drop us a line.

Did you know…

There is a section to add your Business Officers to each study for invoicing purposes without submitting an amendment to the IRB. This allows them to view the individual study information through DISCOVR-E using their VUnet ID and password. The user’s manual for DISCOVR-E includes instructions for adding Business Officers.

Tips for the research community

As in the past, we will post a current “Tip of the Week” related to human subjects research.