This panel features faculty and staff who serve on the UMass Institutional Review Board (IRB), which reviews all faculty and graduate student research on campus that involves interaction with human subjects. The panelists will present on topics relevant to social scientists on campus who want to understand the process better, from logistical matters, such as time frames for review, to advice on what kinds of issues tend to slow down IRB submissions or cause them to be rejected. The board members will also share how they work through hard cases; the most recent thinking on emerging issues in the social sciences, such as the use of new communication technologies; and their perspective on legal challenges to researcher promises of confidentiality.
This event will be of particular interest to SBS faculty who may soon be forced to transition from local departmental review to centralized IRB review for their unfunded and student research projects.