IRB Manager Transition Update - CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy

Please note these important updates about CUNY’s upcoming transition from IDEATE to IRB Manager on September 3. Please take time to review the below information. Note that Central HRPP will also be providing additional detail to the CUNY research community about these processes shortly.

TRANSFERRING PROTOCOLS FROM IDEATE TO IRB MANAGER

During the transition, protocol shells will be transferred into IRB Manager from IDEATE. The shells will only contain basic protocol details, such as PI name, campus, etc., and not detailed study information (e.g., design, methods). Protocol shells will retain the approval period assigned in IDEATE.

Protocol shells will need to be populated with complete study information in the new IRB Manager system. There will be two options for populating a shell with complete study information:

OPTION 1: Work study students will be hired by Central HRPP to populate protocols in the system; however, these students are not yet in place. Once the students are hired, it will take some time for all protocols to be fully populated since they will need to do this manually and there are thousands of protocols across the University.
- If you would like Central to populate your protocols, please provide our SPH HRPP office with a list of these protocols using the attached Excel template at your earliest convenience. Following the transition, we will share this information with Central to facilitate this process. Note that work study students may need to follow up with you to address any questions about your protocol.
OPTION 2: If a researcher would like their protocol to be populated in IRB Manager sooner, they (or their staff) will be responsible for doing so by creating an amendment in IRB Manager and then copying/pasting information from the original IDEATE protocol into the IRB Manager IRB template. While any researcher may pursue this method, this approach should be prioritized among researchers whose protocols are expired and need to be reactivated so they can continue their HSR OR those who need to amend their protocols.

ARCHIVING EXISTING IDEATE PROTOCOLS

Regardless of whether you anticipate populating your own protocol in IRB Manager or having the work study students do so, I strongly encourage all researchers to log into IDEATE as soon as possible and save PDFs of their protocols for their records, if this has not been done so already. We have been informed that after all protocols have been fully populated into the new system (date TBD), IDEATE will no longer be accessible, so it is important that you archive your protocols for future reference. I have attached instructions on how to save a PDF of your protocol in IDEATE to this email.

TRANSITION DATES

I also wanted to remind everyone of the upcoming IRB Manager transition dates:

August 27, 2021 – The last day for new initial submissions of minimal risk protocols in IDEATE.
September 2, 2021 – The last day to submit Continuing Reviews, Amendments and Final Reports in IDEATE.
September 2, 2021 – The last day to submit protocols for convened board review at the 9/23/2021 IRB meeting.
September 3, 2021 – IRB Manager goes live.

IRB MANAGER TRAINING

As mentioned previously, Central is holding regular training sessions (virtual) for researchers on use of the new platform. If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to attend a session if you are able. Please visit the CUNY HRPP website for further information. Additionally, Central is developing IRB Manager training materials for researchers, which I will share with our research community, once available.

To summarize, the following next steps are recommended:

Save copies of your protocols in IDEATE for your records. Find instructions on how to save or print a protocol from IDEATE here.
If you would like Central to populate your protocols in IRB Manager, fill out this IRB Manager Transfer Template and return to me ASAP (note that the timeline for completion is TBD). Otherwise, once IRB Manager goes live on September 3, you may begin populating your own protocols
Register for an IRB Manager training session

If you have any questions, please reach out to Kristen Cribbs, CUNY SPH HRPP Director, at kristen.cribbs@sph.cuny.edu.