The Office of Nursing Research would like to ensure that all research staff, fellows, graduate students, and faculty are aware of required human subjects research training.  All individuals engaged in research (undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff) are required to complete training in human subjects research.  The Office of the Vice Provost for Research has developed a second online training option for faculty who do social and/or behavioral research.  

All research staff are required to renew human subjects training every three years.  The ONR will notify individuals when their certification is expiring.   

The Office of the Vice Provost for Research has identified online training offerings provided by the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) as the accepted standard for fulfilling the requirement for training certification in human research protections.  The CITI program is widely used in academic health centers and at Penn is administered through the Office of Regulatory Affairs under the direction of Yvonne Higgins, Executive Director, Human Research Protection Program.  To access the program, visit http://knowledgelink.upenn.edu. You must have a valid pennkey and password to access this system.

For questions about the CITI online program for the protection of human research subjects, or for questions about University human research protections training requirements contact: 

Office of Regulatory Affairs

215-573-1222

patricia@upenn.edu

• HIPAA Authorization

The HIPAA Authorization template has been updated and streamlined. This template can be accessed on Office of Human Research (OHR) and Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) websites: http://www.med.upenn.edu/ohr/or http://www.upenn.edu/regulatoryaffairs/.          

Although the institutional preference is to keep the HIPAA Authorization separate from the research subject’s informed consent form, researchers can incorporate the elements of the HIPAA Authorization in the confidentiality section of the informed consent, so long as all relevant elements of the HIPAA Authorization template are included. Researchers are encouraged to consult with OHR and ORA when combining the authorization and informed consent. OHR may be contacted at 215-746-7400 and ohr@mail.med.upenn.edu. ORA may be contacted at ora@pobox.upenn.edu.

HIPAA training can be accessed at http://knowledgelink.upenn.edu