Symons to make sense of the Institutional Review Board process April 18

Research and Sponsored Programs at Western Washington University is offering a number of workshops designed to help faculty and staff members write more effective proposals to external agencies. The sessions are intended to be interactive and are meant to build a community for those involved in writing proposals.

The second spring quarter workshop will take place at noon April 18 in Miller Hall 258. The presenter will be Janai Symons, WWU’s research compliance officer. She will cover roles and responsibilities of working with human subjects. 

Attendees will learn when they need Institutional Review Board approval in order to include human data in research. Human subjects research is about more than just interviews and surveys; the review board process can also apply when testing a new curriculum or when reviewing data from sources such as Facebook, a census or bio-samples. Attendees will learn when students need approval for their research projects and how Symons can help.

After Symons' presentation, RSP will offer three additional workshops during spring quarter.

• On April 25, Tracey Finch, RSP pre-award manager, will lead a discussion on how to search for charitable organizations and some common strategies for applying to these grants.
• On May 2, a workshop on writing effective proposals to the National Institutes of Health will feature Clint Spiegel and Jeff Grimm.
• On May 9,  Kathleen Kitto, vice provost for research and dean of the Graduate School, will discuss along with Tracey Finch the various services that RSP offers to principal investigators.

All spring quarter workshops will take place from noon to 1p.m. in MH 258.

Graduate students and new faculty are encouraged to attend. To RSVP for the second workshop or to be added to the email list for workshop information, contact the RSP program coordinator, Coco Besson, at coco.besson@wwu.edu.