University of Georgia

Category: Compliance, Integrity & Safety

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Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

UGA is taking deliberate steps to enhance its export control compliance program, with the goal of facilitating compliance by the research community.

Export controls are the U.S. laws and regulations that govern the transfer of controlled items or information to foreign nationals, countries, and entities for reasons of national security and foreign policy. Compliance enhancements include the addition of a dedicated export control compliance officer within the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the development of user-friendly export procedures, awareness training, and an export control website that provides compliance related information.

Export controls are implicated in the physical international shipment of controlled items, the disclosure of controlled information to foreign nationals on the UGA campus, and in transactions with sanctioned parties.

Please contact Dan Runge, Export Compliance Officer, at 542-4188 or drunge@uga.edu if you have questions or concerns.

Categories
Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

The University of Georgia Institutional Review Board (IRB) has instituted new procedures that streamline the review of human subjects research qualifying for exempt review.  UGA recently joined the Flexibility Coalition, a group consisting of major U.S. research institutions and medical centers that has a major goal of identifying “flexibility” measures that institutions can implement in the IRB review to reduce regulatory burden for researchers and/or workload for IRBs without diminishing human subject protections.  This flexibility is permitted for an institution that has limited the scope of its Federalwide Assurance (FWA) for the Protection of Human Subjects to federally sponsored research.  UGA is one of those institutions, which means that it is allowed a degree of flexibility in the review and oversight of unfunded research involving no risk or no greater than minimal risk to the participants.

As its first flexibility initiative, UGA IRB has approved the addition of two new “Flex” Exempt categories for non-federally funded studies.  Also, only certain modifications to exempt research will now require IRB review and approval.  These changes are all embodied in the new Policies and Procedures for Exempt Review available at https://research.uga.edu/docs/policies/compliance/hso/IRB-Exempt-Review.pdf.

The Human Subjects Office (HSO) and the IRB are committed to continuously improving our human research protection program and identifying opportunities for flexibility within the IRB review process.  If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact the HSO Director, Dr. Benilda Pooser at bpooser@uga.edu or 706.542.3199, or the IRB Chair, Dr. Larry Nackerud, at nackerud@uga.edu.

 

Categories
Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

The University of Georgia Institutional Review Board (IRB) has approved the following new Policies & Procedures and form templates:

These are also available in the eResearch IRB Portal Library .

We encourage you to peruse these new policies/procedures and form templates.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the HSO Director, Dr. Benilda Pooser at bpooser@uga.edu or 706.542.3199, or the IRB Chair, Dr. Larry Nackerud, at nackerud@uga.edu.

 

Categories
Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

UGA users of the CITI online library, which provides mandatory IRB training for Human Subjects Research, Responsible Conduct of Research training and Conflict of Interest training, will no longer be able to use the Internet (IE) 7 browser to access the library, effective March 2015.

CITI currently offers full support for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari;  these constitute 99 percent of CITI traffic. IE 7, which is now more than 8 years old, will be blocked. Site users will need to have IE 8 or later, or use a current version of Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. Older versions are often less secure and provide less functionality.

In the coming months, CITI will be adding several usability enhancements and new features.

Please update your browser accordingly and contact the Human Subjects Office at irb@uga.edu or the Office for Sponsored Programs at sponprog@uga.edu with questions or for additional information.

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Compliance, Integrity & Safety

Research Ethics Course Offered in Fall to Meet NIH RCR requirement

A course on research ethics that meets the NIH Responsible Conduct of Research requirement for T, K, and F awards will be offered this fall.

Qualitative Research 8595  – Research Ethics in the Professional and Social Sciences meet the NIH requirement and also counts as an elective for the Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies Certificate.

The course explores ethical dilemmas in conducting research in the social, professional, and human sciences and the sources of ethical principles and practices used to address these dilemmas. Philosophical traditions in ethics from around the world and codes of ethical practice from professional associations, government agencies, and other relevant institutions are examined for their applications to choices researchers make and challenges they face. This course is designed to equip researchers studying human behavior and experience to engage in ethical analysis and concrete ethical problem solving when designing, conducting, analyzing, reporting, and applying research design.  The prerequisite for QUAL 8595 is any prior course in research methods and design.

Class time: Tuesdays, 5.00-7.45 p.m.

River’s Crossing, Room 139

Instructor: Dr. Kathy Roulston

roulston@uga.edu

 

Categories
Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

The US Department of Agriculture implemented a new regulation in February, 2013 requiring all employees (PIs, Co-PIs, undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and sub-recipients) on National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awards to have appropriate training in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR).  PIs of currently active NIFA awards and all others employed on this award must complete required RCR training.

UGA uses an on-line RCR training program we implemented in 2010 to meet similar National Science Foundation (NSF) regulations pertaining to RCR training for grant employees.  This system, called the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI), is also the same online system used by the Human Subjects Office to meet the federal training requirements regarding use of human subjects in research.

This training needs only be taken once.  Anyone currently employed on a NIFA award who might have previously worked on an NSF award since 2010 does not have to re-take RCR training.

The link to enter UGA’s RCR training module is https://paul.ovpr.uga.edu/CITI/ .  More information about this requirement, CITI, and your options for taking this training can be found at https://ovpr.uga.edu/rcr/.  Please contact Maryann Deom (mtd@uga.edu or 2-8808) if you have any questions about your obligations under NIFA regulations.

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Compliance, Integrity & Safety

How is your lab managing its waste?  Autoclaving is the most dependable procedure used by researchers for the destruction of biological waste material.

A proper autoclave preventive maintenance program along with a biological monitoring program are essential components of ensuring the reliability of an autoclave. Having neither of these in place could pose significant issues as waste moves from the lab to the landfill. The Office of Biosafety has placed autoclave guidance documents on their web page https://ovpr.uga.edu/biosafety/  for easy reference.

If you have any questions or need assistance with your autoclave or waste program, please contact the Office of Biosafety at biosfy@uga.edu or 706.542.5300.

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Compliance, Integrity & Safety

It is time for the Occupational Health and Safety Program’s Annual Update for those individuals currently enrolled in the program.

If you have had any changed in your health status or changes in job responsibilities that might increase your occupational health risks or exposure, please complete an updated form at https://ovpr.uga.edu/docs/forms/compliance/oacu/pdf/OHSP-Annual.pdf. Please submit this update to occhealt@uga.edu

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Compliance, Integrity & Safety

AALAS (American Association for Laboratory Animal Science) has announced that the American Association of Veterinary State Boards (AAVSB) has granted Registry Approved Continuing Education (RACE) CEs for 12 courses on the Library, offering a total of 15 CEs accepted by AAVSB for these courses.

The AALAS Learning Library has been the premier resource for animal-related online training courses in recent years. Free accounts to this library are issued for all personnel on an Animal Use Protocol (AUP) at UGA.

For more information about courses or access, please contact Lisa Kelly, Compliance Training Coordinator, at lmkelly@uga.edu

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Compliance, Integrity & Safety

UGA researchers are reminded  to communicate any research animal health problems or concerns to your Attending Veterinarian or the IACUC in a timely manner.

This is even more important in satellite facilities where the Attending Veterinarian may have little interaction on a day-to-day basis. Timely communication of any research animal health issues helps ensure appropriate animal health oversight that includes and promotes effective medical treatment of animals, complete veterinary medical records, and an enhanced program of disease prevention and control.

You can provide information through the “IACUC Reporting” form found on UGA’s IACUC webpage at https://ovpr.uga.edu/oacu/iacuc/  Or you can email the IACUC at IACUC@uga.edu .  Your Attending Veterinarian also has a 24 hour emergency phone at 706-542-7204.