Sometimes in this world of technology, there's no substitute
for real human feedback. That's why several hundred Eastern
Michigan University investigators apply to use human subjects
in research each year.
But in the world of human subjects review, a little well-placed
technology can work wonders.
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CURTAILING FEARS: (above, from left) Katie
Porter,
a graduate student from Ypsilanti, demonstrates
the
last stage of comfort with a snake by touching
it.
Karen Stanley-Keine, a researcher in clinical
behavior
psychology, holds the snake. Allaying
one's fear of
snakes was the focus of a recent
human subjects
review on campus. The human subjects
review
process has been streamlined and made faster
since
it was placed online, allowing research
at EMU to take
place more quickly.
|
Eastern Michigan's Graduate School, which processes human
subjects applications, placed the human subjects review
process online a year ago. Approval, which used to take
anywhere from two weeks to several months, is now down
to one to three weeks.
"What we're hearing from people is it saves paper,
it saves walking around forms and it speeds up the whole
process," said Psychology Clinic Director Karen Saules,
who co-chairs the human subjects review committee with
Graduate School Interim Dean Deb deLaski-Smith.
The sluggish old process wasn't unique to EMU; Saules
said she's abandoned studies at other universities because
it took so long to obtain approval. Likewise, the solution
has broader appeal. The psychology department is considering
using something similar to streamline graduate admissions.
An application to conduct research on human subjects starts
with the researcher and goes to the Graduate School. Two
faculty members review it and respond — sometimes
flagging potential problems — to the Graduate School.
From there, deLaski-Smith and her staff work with the researcher
to get the problems resolved so that the application can
be approved. Until last year, everything was printed in
triplicate and delivered to each person in the process.
"Inevitably (the old way), something falls through
a crack and there's no way to figure out where the crack
was," Saules said. "This way, there's a trail."
The Graduate School now stores applications on password-protected
servers, virtually at the fingertips of everyone who needs
to work on them. Response is fast; changes can be even
faster. Reviewers receive an e-mail with a link to the
application, and can click a review form that's already
partially filled out. Trouble spots, highlighted in a Microsoft
Word document, are easy to find and fix. High-risk studies
are still presented to the entire committee but, even then,
the new process saves time and paper.
DeLaski-Smith's office even keeps approval letters on
templates, so once a proposal is approved, she just orders
up the appropriate letter and the research can go forward.
Approval is still subject to the same ethical and procedural
rules as before. It's just less painful to get it there.
The Graduate School has a template for a rejection of a
human subjects review request but, in a period of a year,
deLaski-Smith has never had to use it.
"We had a lot of faculty moaning about not wanting
to do research because the human subjects process is so
onerous and time consuming," deLaski-Smith said "We
want to have faculty do quality research, and we don't
want to be an impediment to that process"
