Study staffers’ CITI training status is something that comes up a lot during IRB meetings. All study staffers listed in CLARA who interact with subjects or with identifiable data must be current on CITI training. A couple of things to keep in mind when evaluating whether someone’s CITI training is up to date:
- A study staffer whose sole responsibility is listed as budget manager doesn’t need to be current on CITI training, as that person doesn’t interact with subjects or data.
- CITI offers many different courses. However, only the basic biomedical research and basic social/behavioral research courses accessed by affiliating with either UAMS or ACHRI are accepted as meeting human subject training requirements for the IRB. We’ve noticed a fair number of staffers taking a course with a title similar to those, but that includes the words “Responsible Conduct of Research” (RCR). While other institutions or funding agencies may require RCR training, those courses will not meet our IRB requirements.
- CITI training taken through affiliations at other institutions sometimes meet our requirements. An example would be a faculty member new to UAMS who took equivalent training at her previous institution a year ago. These cases are evaluated individually to see if the other institution’s training is generally equivalent to what we require. Please note that we don’t routinely accept training in cases where the learner accidentally affiliated with UALR or UA Fayetteville.