The Online Edge - To Contact or Not to Contact

To Contact or Not to Contact

When you create an application in E-IRB, there are a lot of elements to consider and options to choose from! One item you might want to review on your applications is under the Study Personnel section – who is listed as a contact?

What is a contact anyway?

For the purposes of E-IRB applications, people set as contacts are the people who will receive automated notifications from the E-IRB system regarding the application status. So , anyone who should be getting those notices (e.g. approval issued, response needed, expiration of IRB approval, etc.) should be marked as a contact! If there are multiple study personnel involved in a project, it’s a good idea to have at least one of them marked as a contact.

Who should be a contact?

By default, the person listed as the principal investigator on the application will always receive notifications. Some people you might consider listing as contacts in the Study Personnel section of an E-IRB application include:

Study coordinators
Co-investigators
Faculty Advisors
Anyone listed as an editor for that application

Ultimately, it’s up to the PI to decide who should receive that information. These are just some suggestions, and there may be other people who would be good to list as contacts.

How do I add someone as a contact?

You can manage these selections when you first add study personnel to your E-IRB application. You can also easily edit study personnel at when you create a continuation review or a modification request. To edit your study personnel options in any of those phases:

Go to the “Study Personnel” section of your E-IRB protocol.
Click on the “Details” link next to the name of the person whose information you’d like to edit.
Manage roles and other information using the options on the right side of the "Add/Modify Personnel" view.

The contact option is beneath the “Role for E-IRB Access” selection drop-down. Hover your mouse cursor over the blue “i” icon for tool tips.

For more information on E-IRB, including video tutorials, known issues, and FAQs, visit ORI’s E-IRB page .

Here's an example for a study coordinator. You can see that this person is authorized to obtain consent, is an editor for this application, and is a contact (so will receive all correspondence related to the E-IRB application).

For more information on E-IRB, including video tutorials, known issues, and FAQs, visit ORI’s E-IRB page .