Class assignments primarily intended for educational purposes (e.g., to demonstrate how research is conducted) are not subject to HSC review so long as such assignments do not involve placing human subjects at more than minimal risk. However, HSC approval is required for any student class assignment research projects involving vulnerable populations (such as pregnant women, fetuses, prisoners, persons with mental disabilities, minors, or economically or educationally disadvantaged persons). Instructors are responsible for making the initial determination as to whether HSC review is required. Instructors and students are cautioned to consider the implications of not obtaining human subjects approval should they later decide that they wish to present the results in a public manner (e.g., at an academic conference, or through publication). Please refer to the section on Non-Research. Further information on Student Research is available in the Student Research Policy.

 When a student is working on a project that already has human subjects approval, and that student will use some of that data to fulfill a course or degree requirement, such as honor's thesis, first-year project, or master's degree, the original principal investigator must submit an amendment to the HSC requesting the student be added as a co-investigator on his/her project for the stated purpose. Any student working in the same capacity but who wishes to use the data for his/her dissertation must also submit a separate application to the HSC describing the project and the data to be used. The "Dissertation Form" that includes directions for this type of submission is available for downloading.  Like our other forms, it is available in three formats.  You have to choose the format first, then the form you want.

In all other situations student-initiated research must be submitted as an independent project, NOT as an amendment to an already approved protocol. All student projects submitted to the IUB HSC must be sponsored by one or more full-time IUB faculty, librarian, salaried clinical rank, or research rank appointee. See the section Researcher Responsibility for the list of approved rank codes and titles. If the sponsor's appointment is at another campus, the review must take place on that campus.