The IRB has updated its Policy 4.6, now titled “IRB Staff Responsibilities.” This policy describes the work of the IRB office staff and its role in promoting the rights, safety, and welfare of human research subjects. Give it a read to get a better idea of how the staff spends it workdays.  

All are invited to join us for UAMS’ first regulatory compliance conference for researchers and study teams, hosted by the Translational Research Institute.  “Connecting while Complying” is a virtual conference scheduled for the mornings of October 27 and 28. Quincy Byrdsong, Ed.D., executive director of Research Administration at Wellstar Research Institute, is scheduled to be […]

Uploading clean and tracked-changes documents in CLARA takes up a lot of time that’s better devoted to getting research reviewed, approved, and completed. So, here’s some news regarding IRB submissions: You can avoid having to upload both clean and tracked-changes copies of documents you submit if you use the track-changes function in Microsoft Word to […]

The IRB has added French translations of its short form consent forms to the IRB’s website. These templates can be used to create study-specific short form consents when non-English-speaking potential subjects are unexpectedly encountered. Spanish, Marshallese, and French short form templates for adult subjects and for parents of research subjects who are minors are now […]

We’ve made some important changes to our protocol and consent form templates, and the new versions are now available on the Templates, Training, Tools page on our website. The revised consent form template revises some language to improve readability, and to correct some inaccurate template language that we’re always sending contingencies about. The updated protocol […]

“When will the IRB run out of policies to update?” you may be asking yourself by now. Well, pretty much never – regulations, best practices, and accreditation standards keep changing, and we need to keep on keeping up. The latest revised and updated policies are: 2.3, Use of Single/Central IRBs. As we keep learning more […]

The IRB has had some heated discussions about genetic testing done now, and also the potential for future testing of stored biological specimens. This article from the Los Angeles Times delves into issues we’ve discussed before on the blog – the use of genetic information made available by people who voluntarily use publicly available genetic […]

We are thrilled to announce we have posted Marshallese and Spanish language versions of our new short form consent templates. Arkansas has sizeable populations of people whose primary language is Marshallese or Spanish, and having these forms readily available will make it easier to discuss research participation with members of these groups. Note that the […]

An updated version of IRB Policy 15.2, titled Consent Exceptions – Planned Emergency Research, is now posted on the IRB’s website. We’ve updated the language to delete a reference to a policy that has been archived, and changed the formatting to fit our current style. The policy’s main idea hasn’t changed – the UAMS IRB still does […]

As we work our way through updating the IRB policies, we’ve now reached IRB Policy 2.4, describing the relationship between the IRB and the UAMS Office of Research Compliance. The changes primarily relate to formatting, with minimal content change. The two offices maintain their status as independent from each other, with each reporting to a […]