CIRTification Training
Effective July 1, 2022, The Rutgers Human Subjects Protection Program (HSPP) will begin offering an alternative educational training option for human subject research known as CIRTification.
What is CIRTification?
CIRTification is a new human subjects research training option for individuals in community organizations that was developed by Dr. Emily Anderson (Center for Clinical and Translational Science, University of Illinois) to provide core research ethics in lay language. CIRTification is a free, web-based human research protections training program tailored specifically to the needs and roles of community research partners. The program is currently offered in both English and in Spanish.
Overview
The CIRTification program is a training alternative for individuals in community organizations, with limited understanding of conducting human research and protecting potential research participants. This option provides training that focuses on establishing the skills in community partners to conduct human subject research effectively and safely in their communities.
The CIRTification: Community Involvement in Research Training is a human research protections training program designed especially for individuals in community organizations. If you will be involved in human subjects research and will be working with individuals in community organizations who will be responsible for recruiting research participants, obtaining informed consent, or collecting data, then this training is for your individual partners at each community organization(s) site. This course will cover:
- Introduction to Research: The basic terminology, activities, and people involved in research and various ethical considerations.
- Research History: Some research abuses that have happened in the past and the rules we have now to prevent those abuses. This module also introduces the goals of community engagement in research and the important responsibilities shared by community research partners.
- Eligibility & Recruitment: The importance of adhering to study inclusion/exclusion criteria and best practices identifying and recruiting research participants.
- Informed Consent: The key components of informed consent, the kinds of information included in the consent form, how to respond to participants’ questions about enrollment and withdrawal, and discussion of practical challenges and good practices.
- The Institutional Review Board: The people on the IRB, the process of submitting to the IRB, and the criteria that IRBs apply to the review of research.
- Collecting & Protecting Data: How to protect participant privacy and keep data safe and confidential during collection, transport, and storage.
- Handling Issues in the Field: What to do if you suspect a co-worker of falsifying data, run into a study participant outside of work, and get challenging questions from study participants.
Who can take CIRTification?
The CIRTification program is only for individuals from community organizations who are working with Rutgers faculty, staff, or students on human subjects research.
Who cannot take CIRTification?
CIRTification training will not be available to Rutgers faculty, staff, and students. Instead, Rutgers faculty, staff and students are required to complete the Rutgers Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative or CITI. Rutgers faculty, staff, and students need to complete the CITI Training for the Human Subjects Research (either): the Biomedical / Clinical Research Investigators-Basic Course or the Human Subjects Research: Social & Behavioral-Basic course (note: only one course is required to be completed).
For more information about CITI training requirements of Rutgers faculty, staff, and students engaged in human subjects research, please see the Rutgers Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative.
CITI vs. CIRTification Comparison
| CITI Program | CIRTification Program |
| Required for Rutgers faculty, staff and students engaged in human subjects research, irrespective of funding or role on project. | Available to and for individuals in community organizations working with Rutgers faculty, staff, or students on human subjects research and responsible for recruiting research participants, obtaining informed consent, collecting data and data analysis. |
| Available at no charge for Rutgers faculty, staff, students, and collaborators working with Rutgers investigators (if they register as an affiliate with Rutgers). |
Available at no charge for any user. |
| The program includes two different courses where each user may choose either the Biomedical/Clinical Research Investigators Basic (18 modules) or the Social/Behavioral Research Basic course (15 modules) depending upon their research methodologies. | The program is a guided, audio-recorded (with view transcript options) videos with 8 modules. Includes a downloadable Dictionary. |
| The duration of the program is 6 to 8 hours in length. | The duration of the program is 3 to 4 hours in length. |
| Includes self-contained readings per module online (no recordings). | Every page in the course is narrated (recorded) and includes transcripts. |
| End of modules include resources where you can find more information about regulations, human research and research ethics. | Includes a “Toolbox” of resources where you can find more information about human research and research ethics. |
| CITI certification is good for 3 years. After each user must register and complete a Refresher course. | CIRT certification does not currently expire. |
Additional Information
The individuals in community organizations cannot have access to Protected Health Information (PHI) associated with or derived from a healthcare service event (I.e., from treatment, payment, operations or from medical records). Individuals in community organization cannot be associated with an institution that has its own Human Subjects Training requirements.
CIRTification program includes guided, audio-recorded (with view transcript options) videos with 8 modules. The duration of the program is 3 to 4 hours in length. There is an available dictionary (can be downloaded) of commonly referred terms and other guidance in the Toolbox. At the end of the course, each individual in will receive their certificate of completion.
Register for CIRTification
Registration for CIRTification program: https://ccts.uic.edu/resources/cirtification/.
On the CIRTification program page, please scroll down and click on “Ready to Learn? Enroll in CIRTification” icon tab. Afterwards, please click “Register” in the top right corner of the screen. Then choose “I am not from UIC” as the option and complete the rest of the registration. Please note that Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey as an institution has been added to the dropdown list of sites. All users must select “Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey” as their site during their registration process.
Certificates of Completion
When an individual in a community organization(s) has completed CIRT training program and passed the CIRT quiz, they will be given a certificate of completion. The certificate of completion can be found under "My Courses" area for download. A copy of the certificate of completion must be sent to the Rutgers Principal Investigator. The Rutgers Principal Investigator must list the names of each individual at the community organization(s) involved in their research within the protocol (Section 2.1, Research Staff) and must upload a copy of each person's CIRT certificate in eIRB Section 15 (Additional Supporting Information). Please note that the Rutgers Principal Investigator does not need to list any individuals in community organizations in eIRB under Section 1.1 (Study Identification) and nor do these individuals need to obtain a Rutgers guest Net-ID.