Institutional Review Board

The Berea College Institutional Review Board is charged by the Federal Government with protecting human subjects involved in research. The IRB performs prospective and continuing review of protocols, the informed consent process, and the procedures used to enroll subjects in order to ensure that the human subject research is conducted ethically and in compliance with the Belmont Report, and with applicable federal, state, local and institutional requirements. Our webpage has links to Belmont Report as well as other critical background information on the formation of the IRB.

If you have any questions about the process of IRB review, please contact either, Davey King, the IRB Chair or Jim Strand, administrative support. Either will be glad to assist you. In addition, a variety of documents related to the IRB process, including a link to the federal regulations and some founding documents on the ethics of research involving human subjects on the “Resources” tab on the navigation menu.

• Scott Steele, Institutional Officer
• Chris Adams
• Clara Chapman, Member
• Alison Heck, Member
• Dee Hill-Zuganelli
• Keith Long, Outside Community Member
• Davey King, Chair
• Jim Strand, IRB Administrative Support

Students, with CITI certification, may only submit classroom research and/or capstone projects with a faculty sponsor who has up-to-date CITI training credentials.  If you are planning on having students conduct human subjects research, you must sign off and serve as a sponsor. Students no longer have the ability to submit protocols on their own.

Please make sure all CITI training is up-to-date.

*Berea is the institutional ID

(Adopted from Slippery Rock University)

Approved January 11, 2022

Proposal: Adopt formal guidelines for managing/reviewing requests from external researchers.

Policy and Accompanying Details:

The external researcher guidelines apply to all individuals not currently affiliated with Berea College who are interested in conducting research involving Berea College, its students, faculty, staff, or alumni.

The purpose of these guidelines is to establish a standard method of reviewing and approving any research conducted that involves Berea College faculty, staff, students, or alumni as research participants and to balance a cooperative, collaborative research effort with existing research and data collection by researchers affiliated with Berea College. Any and all external researchers (anyone currently unaffiliated with Berea College) are required to follow the guidelines.

• External Researcher Guidelines – step by step instructions to request permission for external research.
• External Researcher Application Form – application form to request permission for external research.