CITI Training

An Institutional Review Board, or IRB, is a university organization that oversees human subjects research. If you want to do any research on human subjects, then your research must be approved by IRB. We’ll talk about how to get IRB approval in the Research Basics portion of this course.

However, before you can even seek IRB approval, you need to complete the IRB’s required training regimen. If you plan to do human subjects research, you should complete CITI training right away. You can find instructions on completing CITI training and links to get started here.

Human subjects research can include any of the following:

• Asking people to complete surveys.
• Interviewing people on their experience with a tool.
• Asking people to use a tool in a controlled, potentially recorded, setting.
• Pulling already-existing data on people, such as data on OMS students.

Note that IRB approval and CITI training are only necessary if you would like to ultimately publish the results of your work in an academic publication. If you want to ask some friends to evaluate a tool you develop or talk to potential users to gather requirements and information, those would not automatically qualify as human subjects research. If the ultimate goal of the work is to create a tool, you may not need IRB approval and CITI training. If the ultimate goal of the work is to make a claim (even if the claim is about a tool), then you’ll need IRB approval and CITI training.