January 14, 2020

Meeting attendees: Jerry Lin, Beverly Kemp, Emily Born, Eileen Curl, Shannon Jordan, Clayton Jeffryes, Jess Liao, Kaye Shelton, Alan Moore, Diane Mason, Ruthie Robinson, Vidisha Worley,

 I. Call to Order: Dr. Eileen Curl called the meeting to order at 12:32pm

 II. Member Updates by Eileen Curl

a. Lynn Godkin (Business) has retired and Dr. Wendy Greenidge (Education & Human Development) has resigned from the Board due to additional administrative duties. Dr. Shannon Jordan with Health and Kinesiology has filled the spot vacated by Wendy Greenidge. We are still currently looking for a replacement for Lynn Godkin.

b. Kneco Jones’ term has expired (External/Community Member) The replacement external community member is Jess Liao, Superintendent of City of Beaumont Wastewater Treatment Plant; M.S. degree in Environmental Engineering. She will help review full board reviews.

c. Diane Mason announced her resignation from the IRB effective January 14, 2020.

d. Seeking recommendation for representative from College of Business: Does anyone know anyone in Business who might be effective to fill the Business spot?

Kaye Shelton: Henry Venta might be a good person to fill the Business position.

Diane Mason: Suggestions for my position are: Vince Nicks, Tillisa Thibodeaux, Brett Faulk, or Neil Faulk. 

Jerry Lin: Someone who has submitted an IRB for either of these colleges might be a good option to fill the vacant spots.

III. Approval of Minutes: Eileen Curl asked if there were any corrections to the November 2019 minutes. None were cited.  Minutes were approved by all members in attendance of the IRB meeting today.

IV. Updates from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Administration (ORSPA):

a. Jerry Lin - Associate Provost for Research: 2 items: a. IRB policy looks good and I will work with Emily to reduce redundancy within the policy as well as clean up the formatting.

Shannon Jordan: I have a question regarding Section 37,  students assisting with projects. What should we be doing if they are not really going to be the PI but only a volunteer? They are just assisting with the project. We do have them complete CITI training accordingly and we keep a copy of their certificate on file in our office in the event there is an issue.  

Alan Moore: Essentially the PI is the captain of the project and the students are just assisting.

Eileen Curl: It is important for your department to maintain their CITI

training certificates and etc.

Emily Born: If they are doing the consent or data collection, they will need to be on the IRB. But if they are only assisting with the project than an email to me with the students’ CITI certificates will be fine, I can add the certificates as an attachment to the approved IRB.

 Jerry Lin: Item b. Qualtrics. This will take more time to discuss but I want to begin the discussion now. There have been some internal issues that we need to work out regarding Qualtrics. I’d like to get the opinion of the board on the survey instrument and begin the discussion whether the person conducting the survey should be able to choose what survey instrument they would use for their research.  

Eileen Curl: Qualtrics has extended the time to get the surveys up and running. The president came to a meeting because he had concerns of the quality and content of the surveys being distributed at Lamar. There was one that came across his desk and he was very direct with how he wanted the IRB to handle surveys. Right now, we are using one type of  survey mechanism to collect data and that may be a hindrance. I’d like to get the committee’s input as well and open the discussion so we can avoid the scenario of Qualtrics issues in the future.  

Ruthie Robinson: I don’t think there is anything that says we must use Qualtrics, but I agree with Dr. Lin.

Emily Born: I did a bit of background research. Federal guidelines say it only needs to be a secure platform for survey use. Texas State/TSUS have information regarding Qualtrics and the money saving method of having one platform available to the university.  But Texas State/TSUS also mentions the safety of only using one software system to send out surveys so when potential subjects receive the email they will know and can verify the email comes from a secure system endorsed by the university. The subjects will not have the risk of a random site sending information to them.  Also, TSUS and President Evans do not want to send out multiple surveys of the same content to the same people over and over, essentially inundating the survey population.

Jerry Lin: We also want to make sure we stay incompliance with Federal guidelines and Lamar IRB policy. I just want the committee to think about this discussion and let me know. Let’s table it for now and discuss at the next meeting in April.

Diane Mason: The university was canceling their subscription to Survey Monkey and it was presented that we were using Qualtrics. President Evans was very clear to the board at the meeting he attended about the content, quality, and grammar of surveys being sent out. There was also a concern about using Google Docs.

b. Emily Born, Compliance Officer (IRB Analyst): Everything has been going well.

c. Beverly Kemp, Research Coordinator: Cayuse updated their visual presence and redesigned their site. I have updated all training videos on our IRB website to match the new look of Cayuse. 

V. List of Approved Expedited Studies: Beverly Kemp provided the update. There were 9 approved expedited since the beginning of FY20. The totals for FY19 were 46 approved expedited reviews, 175 approved exempt studies, and 7 full board reviews for a total of 228 approved submissions.

VI. IRB Submission Checklist (see attached)

Eileen Curl: With Dr. Lin’s suggestion at the November meeting an IRB checklist was created. It will walk the PI through what they need to do. We can put it on our website for all to use. Any other suggestions for the checklist? A motion to approve the checklist for use is needed.
Vidisha Worley made a motion to approve the checklist and add to the website.

Ruthie Robinson seconded the motion.

Motion approved.

VII. LU IRB Policies and Procedures on the Use of Human Subjects in Research

a. Revised IRB policy changes need to be reviewed at two IRB meetings prior to implementation; revisions where reviewed at the Nov. 12, 2019 meeting

b. Other suggestions for changes: Dr. Lin and Emily will reformat the policies and delete redundancy, but this will not affect the content of the IRB policies reviewed at the Nov. 12, 2019 meeting.

c. Motion regarding revised IRB Policies and Procedures

Eileen Curl: Asked for a motion to approve the content and new formatting for the revised policies and when complete to post on the IRB webpage.

Kaye Shelton made a motion to approve the content of the revised polices.

Shannon Jordan seconded motion.

Motion approved.            

VIII. CITI Certification for Board Members

a. Reminder: Board members need to hold initial CITI certificates in Social and Behavioral Research-Basic/Refresher (SBE), Biomedical Research – Basic/Refresher (Biomed), and current certificate as IRB members – Basic/Refresher

b. Diane Mason, Nandhakumar Radhakrishnan, and Shannon Jordan need to complete CITI training. Submit electronic copies of CITI certificates to Beverly Kemp if you have not already done so

Emily Born: It was recently found out that if a board member completes the IRB members Course it will satisfy the requirements for the SBE and Biomed courses as well.

IX. Other Business Items: None

Next meeting: April 14, 2020 at 12:30 pm

IRB meetings start at 12:30 pm:

2020 meetings January 14, April 14, July 14, September 8, November 10

Dr. Curl adjourned the meeting at 1:32pm.