When it’s your week to serve on an IRB committee, please try to have all of your assigned reviews done and any comments or draft contingencies entered into CLARA no later than Monday, the day before the meeting. The chair aims to have assignments completed and the agenda made available to members by Wednesday the […]
Help us to help you (Part 2) — CLARA question? It helps to have Lync available on your computer
If you’re having trouble using CLARA, please give us a call in the IRB office – we’re happy to help out. Sometimes it would be really helpful to us to be able to physically see where you are in CLARA. This is possible through the screen-sharing function in the Lync communication system (most commonly used […]
Help us to help you (Part 1) — know your protocol number
We’re numbers people here at the UAMS IRB. IRB protocol numbers, more precisely – everything related to individual studies is filed under a specific protocol number. So when you call or email us with a question about a specific study, please be sure to have the protocol number either at hand or included in your […]
Considering appeals from PIs
PIs have an opportunity to appeal IRB decisions, such as not approving a proposed modification, or a finding of serious or continuing noncompliance. To do so, they draft a written appeal request and send it, along with any supporting documentation, to the IRB office, where staff then assign it to an agenda using the “office […]
Please upload CVs to CLARA profiles
Please help the IRB meet its requirement to verify that PIs are qualified to carry out their studies by making CVs easy to find. The simplest way to link CVs to study protocols is to upload CVs directly to CLARA profiles, rather than to individual studies. Tying a CV to the profile will automatically link […]
Remember, CLARA accepts Word documents
In a change from the IRB’s previous online submission system, ARIA, our current system, CLARA, accepts study documents created using Microsoft Word. In the ARIA days, all study documents had to be converted to PDF. The new system will accept documents in Word format, so that conversion is no longer required. Keeping everything in Word […]
Studies subject to closure 30 days after continuing review expiration
Here’s another reason to get your continuing review forms in early: The IRB now routinely closes studies once a continuing review (CR) has been expired for 30 days. Even studies that have a CR form pending, or that have contingencies outstanding from a pending CR form, are subject to closure if the approval has been […]
Remember to look at ALL tabs on an Excel Spreadsheet
Investigators will sometimes submit items to the IRB on an Excel Spreadsheet. This is most common at Continuing Review for PIs who use the Events and Deviations Table template that is available on the IRB’s website. This table is in the form of a spreadsheet with two worksheets on it. When looking at these tables, […]
A tip about formatting document titles in CLARA: No between-word underscores, please
We’ve noticed that some investigators routinely use underscores between words when typing in document titles in CLARA. We ask that you don’t use any underscores that aren’t strictly necessary, i.e. that aren’t an essential part of a document name. The underscores prevent the titles from wrapping across lines in CLARA, making it difficult for IRB […]
Start the New Year off right with a NICE review!
New to research? Or has it been a while since you’ve gotten some feedback on your research processes? If so, and if you have a study that’s about to be approved or that hasn’t enrolled any subjects yet, consider getting in touch with the Office of Research Compliance (ORC) to request a New Investigation Consult […]