HSRB & CITI Certification

• In addition to HSRB approval, for departments that use CITI as part of the training in ethics and responsible conduct of research, it is necessary to take the Responsible Conduct of Research tutorial and certification through CITI, whether your work with humans is exempt or not.
  • See the Hope College CITI website for more information about how to take or add CITI courses to your CITI account.
  • You'll get a notice to take the ethics refresher CITI tests near your three-year expiration date.
  • New researchers take the basic Social/Behavioral/Educational Research course. If your research is biomedically related, take the Biomedical course. Everyone must take the Responsible Conduct of Research course. Continuing researchers take the refresher courses.
• Some Hope staff have already taken their ethics training through the Cancer Institute (CI), which the HSRB deems as equivalent to CITI's training. Your training is good for three years. Submit proof of training (from CITI or the CI) along with your application to the HSRB. If we already have your certificate on file, note the date you completed your training on your HSRB application. When you take your refresher course in three years, please take the CITI course unless doing so violates other regulations that you are under.
• Teachers who want their students to only read certain parts of the CITI tutorial can have their students click on the relevant tutorials below to see the material. Being "certified" means that a person has clicked on the CITI link, registered with Hope College, and successfully completed all tutorials and tests related to his/her discipline. Then CITI will notify Hope College and the person completing the test that the test taker is "certified."

Why CITI?

Read the rationalization for the CITI tutorials and tests and to read more about exemptions. Taking the CITI tutorials is Hope College's active attempt to prevent any unanticipated problems/violations that have to be reported to the federal government and could shut down your research and/or could threaten all research at Hope College.

Read more about rationalization for the CITI tutorials 

HSRB Proposals and CITI

For information on registering and completing CITI courses, see the Hope College CITI Certification website.

When you enter a proposal in the HSRB system, you will need to type in your date of completion. If you have collaborators, their names and CITI completion dates are to be entered too. Faculty are responsible for training their student researchers with CITI training and keeping a paper copy of their own and their students’ CITI completion certificates.