Faculty Resources

Human Subjects Review Board

Important Updates

  • HSRB review for Fall 2024 will begin on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 and end on Friday, November 15, 2024 at 5:00 pm. We will resume review for Spring 2025 on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
  • Paperless submissions using Microsoft Forms and requiring a Hendrix log-in will be used going forward. The links below for self-determination and proposal forms have been updated to take proposers to the appropriate form. Please email hsrb@hendrix.edu with any questions or issues.
  • All submissions going forward will need to use these new documents and procedures, which are available on this site. Submissions that use old documents will not be reviewed.

Summary of changes to HSRB Policies and Procedures that are being presently implemented:

  • the addition of a “concise summary” on informed consent forms (see the Appendix to the Policies and Procedures document);
  • the expansion of categories of research that qualify as exempt from HSRB review and require only minimal HSRB monitoring; and
  • changes to post-approval monitoring of research projects.

Thus, if you have conducted research under our previous Policies and Procedures, we encourage you to direct your attention to the sections of this document that address the above issues.

At this time, Hendrix College is not planning to implement procedural changes related to Broad Consent, as detailed in the Final Rule. Full information about the Final Rule can be found here: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-01-19/pdf/2017-01058.pdf

Overview

Hendrix College is committed to the ethical treatment of all human participants in research conducted by its faculty, staff, and students.  The Hendrix College Human Subjects Review Board (HSRB) is responsible for reviewing all research done under the auspices of the college and to ensure that, in each project, human participants are treated in a just and ethical manner.

Related Documents: 

Human Subjects Research Review

Step 1: Qualifications for Human Subjects Research

For research that does not qualify for exempt status (see HSRB Policies and Procedures and "Is my research exempt from review?"), there are two reasons why you would need HSRB approval prior to data collection:

  1. The research conducted with human participants involves more physical, mental, psychological, or social risk than people would experience on a daily basis. It doesn't matter the type of research – it could be based on interview, survey, or experimental methodologies. If the research asks about sexual or health history, or inquires about any other socially-sensitive information, it must come through the Board. More detailed explanations of this kind of risk can be found in the Hendrix HSRB Policies and Procedures below.
  2. The research conducted with human participants will be published or presented off campus. Please note that undergraduate research conferences have an exemption, unless they involve the level of risk described in #1.
To determine if your research is exempt:

If you believe your research is exempt: 

Step 2: Ethics Training

The HSRB requires that any student submitting an HSRB has completed online research ethics training. This training was previously hosted through the National Institutes of Health Protecting Human Research Participants course and is now being hosted for in-house purposes ONLY by Hendrix College. It is strongly recommended that you submit a copy of your online research ethics training completion certificates with any funding request for an Odyssey Undergraduate Research (UR) if your project will be likely to come through the HSRB for review. 

NOTE: If you previously completed CITI training through Hendrix College, you DO NOT have to complete the below course. Instead, please indicate your prior completion on your HSRB application and the chairs will confirm your completion in our CITI database. Additionally, if you previously completed NIH training, but do not have a saved copy of your completion certificate, you make skip the module presented in the below document and go straight to the 21-item quiz.

In short, you will follow the three steps outlined below to complete ethics training:

  1. Read the PDF-version of the NIH training module in full 
  2. When you are prepared to take the quiz, please click on the following link:  Hendrix College/NIH Ethics Training Module Quiz
    • Note that you must earn a score of 100% (21/21 questions correct) to pass this training course. However, you may take this quiz as many times as is necessary to earn that score. To retake the quiz, simply click on the above link again to start anew. 

  3. After passing the quiz at 100%, please send an email to HSRB@hendrix.edu to request a copy of your completion certificate. Your completion certificates will be sent to you within 2 business days of your request. 

Again, this ethics training protocol is ONLY for Hendrix College faculty, staff, and students. Please do not complete this training if you are not a student or employee of Hendrix College.


Step 3: Submitting HSRB Proposals

If you have research that you want to be reviewed, you will need to submit your proposal using the link to a Microsoft Forms below. This will require a Hendrix login that will serve as your signature for the proposal. If you experience any other technical difficulties while completing these forms, please contact Dr. Stacey Schwartzkopf and Dr. Carmen Merrick at hsrb@hendrix.edu.

NOTE: If you will be compensating participants (e.g., cash, gift card/certificate), you must review and abide by the new College guidelines for doing so in order for your proposal to be HSRB-approved. Please see the attached document on Procedure for Incentives below. 

Are you ready to submit?:

For student participants, remember to review your proposal information with your professor/ project supervisor, ensuring the HSRB submission checklist is complete before submitting the proposal form. Please complete the Proposal Form Draft beforehand to ensure you are prepared to submit the Proposal Form.

To submit an HSRB form: 


Step 4: Post Approval HSRB Monitoring

HSRB Research Project Renewal

At-risk (full board) research projects may not continue past their approval expiration date (one year after approval). The date on which your project's HSRB approval expires can be found on the HSRB approval memo. If you are unsure of your project's approval expiration date, please e-mail   HSRB@hendrix.edu. If you wish to continue your research project (ongoing data collection) beyond its original approval expiration date, submit the HSRB Continuing Review form within 30 days of the project's expiration date.  Projects may be renewed twice over the course of the project, resulting in three years total project time. If modifications will be made to the study design or procedures, please submit an updated application with modifications highlighted. If there are no changes to the research as described in the original HSRB Application after a year, resubmit the most recent version of your HSRB Application.  

Minimal risk (expedited review) projects no longer expire and, thus, do not require continuing review by the HSRB. At-risk projects that are at the data analysis only stage are also now exempt from continuing review procedures.

HSRB Research Project Modification

If there are substantive changes to a research proposal, researchers will need to complete and submit the HSRB Modification form to request approval for these changes, with changes highlighted in all supporting documents (e.g., questionnaires, etc.). These changes may be implemented as soon as they are approved by the HSRB.

HSRB Research Project Completion 

At the completion of the project, researchers are expected to submit the HSRB Final Report form. This report communicates to us that your research has concluded properly. Research for which a Final Report has not been received may be considered non-compliant.


Planning and Timelines

The HSRB will only review proposals turned in during Weeks 1-13 of each semester.  So, if you intend to do research over a winter or summer break, be proactive about submitting research proposals early.  

For projects that qualify for self-determination, researchers will be notified within 24 business hours if their project is deemed to NOT qualify for exemption.

For projects that qualify as minimal risk or at-risk, it typically takes 5-10 business days for an initial review to be conducted, at which point changes or additional information may be requested and a re-review may need to be conducted.  It is therefore imperative that you request review in plenty of time to go through this process before the start date of your research.  Researchers can also email and request a summer review (please note that there is no winter break review), but there would need to be a compelling reason that is directly related to the research (i.e., part of a summer research experience involves faculty and students writing an HSRB proposal).  For summer review to be considered, this request must be made during week 1-13 of the semester prior to the research and there is no guarantee that summer review will be granted.

   
     

Odyssey Projects and HSRB Review

If you are submitting an Odyssey project for funding that involves research conducted with human participants, you will need to get a consultation form that you take to a member of the HSRB (available members are listed on the handout) and that you will submit with your Odyssey application.  These consultation forms are available in the Odyssey office.  These consultations can only be done in person and will typically need to be scheduled in advance.  Please be aware that there is no guarantee of committee members being available the day of the deadline, so you will want to be proactive about scheduling these appointments.