The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is an agency on campus that works to protect the rights of participants in research projects. In the research study process, it is mandatory to complete an IRB application to conduct your research projects. During this process, an application is sent to the IRB for review, and if necessary, will entail editing on the part of the researcher/student. After the IRB has provided approval, the researcher/student is permitted to proceed with their research project. No research may begin without the approval of the IRB. For this course, students will not be submitting an official IRB application. However, for this discussion post, you will visit the IRB process. Becoming familiar with the IRB process is a necessity for understanding ethical research. In addition to reviewing the IRB process, you will review the sample IRB proposals and answer the following questions and submit into the discussion post in regard to the IRB process:
1. In each IRB proposal, how protected from harm are subjects likely to be? Why?
2. In each IRB proposal, how clear is the planned research proposal? Do you understand how the research data collection will be conducted? How will it be used?
3. In each IRB proposal, are ethical standards upheld or not?
