Institutional Review Board Committee update for AY2025-26

Please adhere to the following Institutional Review Board (IRB) deadlines and instructions if applicable to you:

• Below are the monthly deadlines to submit applications to the portal. The IRB Committee convenes one week after these deadlines on the time set aside for collegewide committee meetings.

• Plan for a three-week turnaround from the moment you apply until final approval. Please expect a turnaround of about a week for minimal risks studies that can be expedited.

A recent update to the sample consent form

There is a recent update to the sample informed consent document. Use this newest version for new studies. Qualtrics is now administered by three IT staff members who will have access to the study participants’ information. Note that these individuals are adequately trained to handle sensitive data. The committee recommends that you try as much as possible to do anonymous studies, which significantly decreases confidentiality concerns.

Information on completing IRB applications

• Please refer to the IRB webpage for information about the IRB and sample forms. You may visit the portal to submit your application. Note that if you have students doing class projects, you must submit those applications via an email to the IRB chair with the appropriate class-related form and a copy of your course syllabus.

• The IRB Committee highly recommends that you use the sample consent form.

• The IRB Committee recommends that you use Qualtrics to administer surveys. All faculty and students already have a Qualtrics account. You can access your Qualtrics account from the projects section.

• All persons doing human subjects research, including student researchers and those doing exempt research, still need to complete the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative training.

• External researchers whose studies were approved elsewhere but need to collect data at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) will need a letter of cooperation from the GGC IRB, who will work with the appropriate GGC officials to complete the letter. We will need a copy of the approval letter, the names of all the researchers involved, the target population and the contact information for the IRB that approved the study.

• If you have any questions, please email the GGC IRB at irb [at] ggc.edu (irb[at]ggc[dot]edu).