All faculty, students, advisors, and staff who have contact with human subjects or human subject data must receive training in the protection of human subjects. IRB applications will be accepted only when all project staff and advisors have completed this education requirement.  Remember that to serve as a research advisor, CITI Social/Behavioral or CITI Biomedical (NOT EXEMPT) training must be completed. 

• Certain very low-risk protocols (innocuous surveys and interviews with adults) may qualify for a waiver of training/education.  See Education Waiver for more information.

CITI (Collaborative IRB Training Initiative)

This online educational program is sponsored by the Collaborative IRB Training Initiative (CITI) and the University of Miami. The CITI program was developed by national IRB experts and covers several aspects of bioethics and human subject research in a module format. Each module has educational material that can be read on screen or printed, and a brief online test.

The Exempt CITI module was developed for researchers who will only be performing research that qualifies as Exempt in the IRB review process and takes around ten minutes to complete.

The Social/Behavioral and Biomedical CITI modules are for PIs that will be conducting non-exempt research or serving as a research advisor.  They take about 3-6 hours to complete.  You can do each module separately – you do not have to complete the entire program in one sitting. When you have finished the course, you will be instructed on how to print or download a Course Completion Report (certificate of completion).

Instructions for registering can be found at http://www.research.olemiss.edu/irb/CITI.

CITI certification is good for three years. On or before your three-year anniversary date, you must complete a CITI Refresher course. Information about Refresher courses can be found on the CITI website.