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Office for Research Protections (ORP)
ORP would like to welcome any new researchers to the Boston College community. ORP provides administrative support to the Institutional Review Board (IRB). If you have any questions or concerns as you navigate your way through the IRB process, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are available by phone (x24778) or email (irb@bc.edu) during normal business hours. We look forward to working with you to help facilitate a positive experience with the IRB.
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
The mission of the IRB is to protect the rights and welfare of human participants who volunteer to take part in research at Boston College. Federal regulations and University Policy require prospective review and approval of all human subject research conducted by faculty, staff, or students. As with Boston College's Jesuit tradition of excellence, service and beneficence, the goal of the IRB is to ensure the safe and ethical treatment of research participants.
Latest News
Federal regulations require that consent forms be written at a level that is comprehensible to human participants. It is the Principal Investigator's (PI) responsibility to ensure that this fundamental ethical principle is followed. The initial IRB applications now include a section that deals with the readability level of consent forms. This new procedure is discussed in more detail below.
A new document providing guidance for creating consent forms that match the comprehension level of participants has been posted to our website.
TheIRB Training Policy has been revised to include an exception to the policy for those PI's who are strictly dealing with de-identified data sets and are not conducting research using federal funding. PI's who meet that criteria are exempt from the training policy.
New Procedures
In each protocol submitted to the BC IRB, the PI must verify the comprehension/readability level of the consent form by using one of the three tools listed in the application and indicate the level on the application form.
Please continue to check our website for the most recent IRB forms and applications. We cannot accept old forms since they may not contain information that is now required.
The IRB no longer needs to review protocols for PI's who are purely in the data analysis stage and no longer have any interaction with human participants or their personally identifying information. PI's who meet this criteria should complete the new Data Analysis Form which will allow OPR to close the protocol. For PI's who are in the data analysis stage and will have interaction with human participants or access to identifiers, the PI must complete the Continuing Application Form to seek IRB approval for continuing review of their project.
The Policy for the Protection of Human Research Participants and the Standard Operating Procedures for Researchers are now available on our website. We invite you to read these important documents which contain substantial information regarding the process of IRB protocol submissions and approval.
The IRB's position on the issue of compensation for participants is that at a minimum compensation should be given on a prorated basis when a participant partially completes a project. Compensation should be given in recognition of time and effort and not as a reward for performing a task.
Undergraduate student research may be subject to IRB review if the project meets the definitions of research and human subjects and the results of the project will be published or presented at meetings. As is always the case, it is best to talk over any questions with the ORP staff. We welcome your questions and will be more than happy to talk over any uncertainty that may exist in an undergraduate's project and whether it needs to be reviewed by the IRB.
