Institutional Review Board Form Instructions,
Tips for Success, and Links

Institutional Review Board Proposal

Prior to undertaking your research project, you must have your project proposal reviewed and approved by Whitworth’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).  This is in everybody’s best interests – it helps ensure that you, your participants, and the university are conducting safe, worthwhile research. 

You or your research group should prepare a draft of the proposal to submit to the IRB committee. The committee encourages you to have your proposal draft reviewed in advance by your supervising faculty member; this will facilitate preparation of an accurate, appropriate, and sufficiently detailed application. In light of this, the IRB application form found online has been recreated in this document specifically to help you prepare your application.

When you are ready to submit your application, please click here.

The information at the link will provide instructions that make the submission process understandable and will mitigate technical difficulties.  Please read through all of these instructions.  Once you have finished reading the instructions, click here, or on “IRB Application” at the bottom of the page.

SharePoint Log-In Instructions (required to open a new IRB form):

• When prompted to log in, please do the following:
  
  
  • Enter your user name in the following format: admin\username (ex: admin\jdoe15). The backslash is under the "Backspace" button on your keyboard.
    
    
  • Enter your network password.
    
    
• Sharepoint allows three incorrect log-in attempts before the account is temporarily locked for 20 minutes. Be sure that you are entering your data correctly.
  
  
• Users must be logged into a computer as themselves in order to sign a form.
  
  
• If there are multiple investigators, each must sign into a computer as himself or herself, follow the link back to the IRB form that was in the e-mail sent to the initial submitter of the form, and sign electronically BEFORE the process moves forward. An e-mail alert is sent to the faculty assurance person, letting him or her know that a form is ready for review.
  
  
• Investigators cannot make changes to the original application once it is submitted for review; any changes requested are made on the Protocol Change section via a Word document.
  
  
• Once an IRB form has been correctly submitted, with all investigators having signed, an e-mail will be sent to the primary investigator. This confirms that your faculty assurance person has received an e-mail alerting her or him to review the form. If you DO NOT receive this e-mail, return to your form to be sure that it is, indeed, complete; be sure that ALL signatures are recorded. Wait five minutes, and if you still do not receive the e-mail, check your Junk E-mail folder. E-mail Lynn Noland if you need further assistance.

Flowchart for an IRB Form:

1) Investigator submits and signs form; > 2) ALL submitters sign; > 3) faculty assurance reviews and signs; > 4) form review; > 5) protocol-change request may be made; > 5) protocol changes are made, and ALL investigators sign again; > 6) FINAL review by board.

IRB form or process questions go to Lynn Noland. Technical questions re: SharePoint access should be sent to spadmin@whitworth.edu.

The Institutional Review Board meets weekly, on Fridays at 3:30. If your form requires a full board review, your application MUST be submitted by the Monday prior to the Friday meeting. See the Sponsored Programs page for a schedule of the Friday meetings.

Policy on the Use of Alcohol/Controlled Substances/OTC Drugs in Student Research (Approved 11/16/12)

The IRB will not approve student research projects using any controlled substance including alcohol and prescription drugs. Projects using over-the-counter (OTC) drugs and supplements must include a complete, literature-based risk-assessment plan that details all potential side effects and health risks of the drug, and includes a protocol for minimizing and mitigating said risks should they occur in a study participant. The risk-assessment plan must be a minimum of one single-spaced page based on at least five references from the primary scientific literature. The IRB reserves the right to reject any proposal using OTC drugs that does not have a sufficient risk-assessment plan.

Recruiting Subjects at Other Institutions

If you would like to use subjects from Eastern Washington University or Gonzaga University, please contact one of the following department chairs to determine the process needed:

EWU: Sarah Keller, Ph.D., IRB Chair and Professor of Anthropology
skeller@mail.ewu.edu

Gonzaga: Deborah Booth, Ph.D., Chair and Associate Professor of Teacher Education
booth@gonzaga.edu

Click here to access the IRB Application.