A Message from the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board
IRB Announcements
IRB Consultation Hours
To make it easier for investigators to consult with IRB staff, we are implementing weekly ‘office hours,’ beginning Wednesday, April 4. Every Wednesday, from 9 am to noon, at least one Full Board Research Review Coordinator and one Exempt/Expedited Research Review Coordinator will be available for face-to-face meetings to answer questions and provide assistance to research staff who are preparing, correcting, and/or modifying submissions for IRB review. OSIRIS-related questions should be directed to the OSIRIS staff for immediate assistance.
We strongly recommend that you make an appointment by contacting Nick Landolina, IRB Office manager, at 412.383.1622 or landna@upmc.edu. Same day appointments are certainly possible.
IRB Question of the Week
We are beginning this new feature and encourage investigators to send us questions that would be of general interest to the human subjects research community. We reserve the right to edit questions. An ‘IRB Question of the Week’ archive will be accessible from the IRB home page. Address your questions to the IRB Director, Christopher Ryan (ryancm@upmc.edu) using as the subject line ‘IRB Question of the Week.’
QUESTION: We are using laptop computers to interview our subjects and store their data. What should I do if one of these laptops is stolen?
ANSWER: If a laptop (or any other portable data storage device) used for human subjects research is stolen, and the device contains identifiable data, the theft must be reported (a) to the police, (b) to the IRB as an ‘unanticipated event,’ and (c) to University Legal Counsel. In all instances, it is critically important to report the type of information that was stored on the computer, whether it was password protected, and whether it was encrypted. In the absence of a password-protected, encrypted dataset, the loss of personally identifiable data will be considered by the IRB to present a ‘risk to subjects or others’ and will require the IRB to report this loss to the Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP); if the study is funded by NIH, we are obligated to notify that agency as well.
Because of concerns about identify theft, researchers should never store subjects’ social security numbers on laptops, and should include as few personal identifiers as possible (preferably only research subject codes should be used). All laptops used for human subjects research must be password protected and should have appropriate encryption software to reduce the likelihood of a breach of confidentiality. The unfortunate reality is that there have been a surprisingly large number of laptop computer thefts in the past 6 months; unless absolutely critical to the research being conducted, it is inadvisable to store research data on laptops or other portable devices.