Who may serve as a Principal Investigator?
- Full-time faculty members (must be tenured, tenure-track, or on a multiple year contract) or emeritus faculty may serve as a PI. Faculty members who are not full time or on a multiple year contract must have a Co-PI.
- Full-time staff with the necessary qualifications to conduct research may serve as a P.I. with the approval of their immediate supervisor.
- Students must identify a full-time faculty or staff member to serve as the P.I. of their study.
- Researchers wanting to work with members of the Rhodes community as (a) part of a research team or (b) as an explicitly recruited sample must have their research approved by the Rhodes IRB and must have a Rhodes faculty or staff member serve as the PI.
General Responsibilities of PIs
- Ensure all members of the research team have documentation of current ethics training and evidence of such training has been submitted to the Rhodes IRB.
- Ensure all research undergoes Rhodes IRB review prior to the initiation of any research activities.
- Request Continuation of Research, if needed. All approved research will be automatically closed one year after IRB approval, unless a Continuation Request form (see Forms and Templates) is submitted prior to the one-year mark. If a PI would like to continue research that has already be automatically closed, they will need to submit a new proposal form.
Ethics Training Requirements
All individuals engaged in research involving human participants must complete an ethics training program approved by the Rhodes College IRB. Training must be completed by all members of the research team before the project application will be considered by the IRB. The College provides training in the protection of human research participation (PHRP) through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). After clicking on this link, Rhodes students, staff and faculty should click on the "Register" link at the top of the page and then affiliate with Rhodes College. At minimum, each member of the research team must complete the Social and Behavioral Research training which consists of 14 different modules.
In some cases, the IRB will accept training through other approved outlets so long as documentation of completion is provided. Acceptable PHRP ethics training will review the Belmont Report, federal regulations related to research with human participants, and issues for consideration when managing risk involved in human participant research. Additional training may be required by the Rhodes College IRB when relevant to the particular research question being addressed, the utilized method, or the research population (e.g., HIPAA, special populations). Researchers must obtain a minimum of 80% correct across CITI module quizzes to successfully complete ethics training.
Ethics training (or the appropriate CITI refresher course) must be completed every three years.