Institutional Review Board
EC3 encourages and supports scholarly pursuits of students, faculty, and staff of the College. Such work and research may involve the use of human subjects for data collection and analysis.
Our Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews proposals involving human subjects to ensure that the rights and welfare of human subjects are protected; that risks have been considered and minimized; that the potential for benefit has been identified and maximized; and that all human subjects are volunteers who choose to participate in research only after being provided with legally effective informed consent. EC3 requires that all research is conducted in an ethical manner and in compliance with established standards. Those individuals seeking to conduct such research at EC3 or using EC3 students, faculty, staff, or resources may not solicit subject participation or begin data collection until they have obtained clearance by EC3’s Institutional Review Board.
The IRB does not assume the role of evaluating the soundness of the proposed research study, the merits of the research design nor the potential contribution of the research to scholarly literature. IRB does have the responsibility to evaluate the usefulness of the study to EC3 and to evaluate the time (including class and student time as well as staff time and resources) that EC3 might be asked to contribute.
IRB approval of a study does not constitute EC3 sponsorship of the study—it is up to the researcher to arrange any needed volunteer participation of faculty, staff, and/or students.
EC3’s IRB reviews and approval are required for any research involving research volunteers that: is conducted by EC3 faculty, staff, administration, and/or students in their respective capacities at the College; is performed on the premises of EC3 (even if conducted by persons not affiliated with EC3); if the facilities or equipment of EC3 is being used (even if conducted by persons not affiliated with EC3); or involves EC3faculty, staff, or students (even if conducted off-campuses or off-site locations).
Only research that involves human research volunteers requires IRB approval. Usually, this occurs for students pursuing graduate degrees (masters or doctoral degrees) and is not typically required of coursework for undergraduate students. If the IRB request is a result of another college or university’s research/IRB approval process, EC3 will review that request to ensure compliance with standards set forth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) in Federal regulations 45 CFR 46.
If you are unsure please send an email to: IRB@EC3pa.org
IRB requests should include:
- Name and contact information of all investigators
- Date of request
- Research Statement addressing the:
- purpose of the study
- aims/objectives (hypothesis)
- a description of how the research will be conducted (methodology – what participants will be asked to do)
- Risk to participants and, if appropriate, mitigations to be taken to reduce/respond to risk
- Description of how informed consent with be gained
- Description of how confidentiality will be maintained
- Description of data security at collection, storage, analysis and destruction phases
- Assurances that any disaggregated data will be used ethically and responsibly
- Description of how results may benefit EC3 and how results will be shared
- Attach a copy of data collection instrument/prompts
IRB requests should be sent to: IRB@EC3pa.org