News

Dickinson's new IRB policy statement (standard operating procedures, or SOP) was approved by the IRB and the College on May 10, 2013.  

The SOP document replaces the original policy dated 2003 and ensure the IRB is in full compliance by providing more robust statements regarding the IRB’s specific responsibilities and how they are undertaken.  The SOPs also describe the roles of departmental reviewers, faculty supervisors, and address a host of other details.  What specifically does *not* change is that oral history research remains excluded from IRB review, because it does *not* meet the federal definition of research that is subject to regulation. 

The SOPs ares now available as an indexed PDF on the IRB Mentor on-line submission system main page.  The IRB intends to provide additional practical information (via FAQs and a Q&A) on IRB Mentor and on the IRB website, rather than integrating those in the SOP’s. These latter documents are being revised.

Note that the new SOP borrows substantially from that of the Fairfield University IRB where our IRB Mentor online protocol submission system was developed. FFU’s agreement to allow Dickinson's IRB to use their SOPs as a model is acknowledged with gratitude.