IRB Training

To conduct human subjects research, researchers (faculty, staff, and students) need to have completed one of the following CITI courses under the Human Subjects Research question within the last three (3) years:

• Human Subjects Research – Researcher
• Social & Behavioral Research – Basic/Refresher (only if you have completed this before)
• Biomedical Research – Basic/Refresher (only if you have completed this before)

Note: IRB required training is different than Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), which covers topics related to research misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism). Be sure to take the Human Subjects Research – Researcher course and not the RCR courses, unless the project is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Science Foundation (NSF) as the RCR course is also required by the funding agency.

For studies pending approval: The IRB cannot release an approval letter until all listed study personnel has their training verified. Failure to complete training can delay committee approval of the research project. The PI can decide to remove you from the submission to avoid delaying his/her study approval. 

For active studies: Current training for all personnel is checked at the study's annual review. Failure to complete training can impact the study's continued approval and cause the study to expire. Expiration will result in a stop to all research activities. The PI can decide to remove you from the submission to avoid his/her study from expiring. If removed, you will no longer be authorized to work on this research project. 

CITI-iRIS Connection: Training History

Login at: https://www.citiprogram.org.

Under the Main Menu/My Courses, courses will be listed that require your attention. Or you can go under My Records to access course completion data and print completion certificates.

Training is managed through CITI.

Login at: https://www.citiprogram.org.

If new to CITI, click Register to create an account.

 Be sure to check “Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi,” not Texas A&M University.

At the bottom of the page you can Add a Course.

A list will be presented of courses based on roles that you can select and have added to your Courses.

Under Question 2, Human Subjects Research, select Researcher as shown below.

There is no need to email or send in the CITI certificate if you are under the TAMU-CC CITI account (see below on how to affiliate with TAMU-CC). We can look up individual’s training records directly within CITI.

To clear a training stipulation for a protocol under review, simply state training is complete on the protocol feedback form.

Having sub-investigators email training certificates into the IRB without reference to the protocol number does not speed up the review process, since we must associate each email with the protocol it relates to.

No. Non-TAMU-CC collaborators can include a print-out of their course completion certificate with the IRB application.

Another option is to affiliate within CITI to Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. This allows us as admins to verify training directly within CITI.

Click on Affiliate with Another Institution, type in “Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi”, and follow the prompts.