Overview

A. iRIS™ authenticates using "My Research" ARGIS/PARIS log-in information. If you use "My Research" for your Contracts & Grants accounts, you will use the same user name and password in iRIS™.  NOTE: Only UCF personnel – faculty, students and staff – can be assigned iRIS™ accounts.  If someone from an outside institution will work on your study, that person should be listed in the Collaborating Institution section and not under Key Study Personnel.

A. Please print out an "iRIS™ User Access Request" form, fill it out and sign it, and then either fax it to the IRB office or scan it and send it to IRB office as an e-mail attachment.  The PDF form can be found on the IRB web page.  The IRB office will set up your iRIS™ account and send you an e-mail with the information.  You must log in and out of iRIS™ to activate your account.

A. The individual(s) must have iRIS™ access prior to being added to a study and they must activate their accounts (by logging in and out of iRIS™) before you will be able to find their names and select them to add to your study. 

A. Informed Consent forms must be in RTF (rich text format), DOC or DOCX (Microsoft Word) or PDF (Adobe).  Study documents can include DOC or DOCX (Microsoft Word), WPD (WordPerfect), RTF (rich text format), PDF (Adobe), XLS (Microsoft Excel), TXT (text format), and others.  NOTE:  If your study documents are written in Chinese, Arabic, or another language that uses characters (rather than the usual alphabet), you must upload the documents in PDF (Adobe) so that they will be readable when they are approved (and converted to PDF) in iRIS™ and receive the IRB approval stamp.

A. When you log in to iRIS™, you will see the "Incomplete Task" on your homepage.  Click on the "Open" icon to the left of the study title.  This will take you directly to the sign-off sheet.  An iRIS™ application can be created by a "Study Author," but the PI must sign-off before the submission can be routed for further review.  All iRIS™ submissions must be routed to the PI's department chair/ institute director for review and approval.  If a chair or director is the PI, the submission must be routed to his/ her supervisor, such as Dean or VP.   When the PI is a Master's or Doctoral student, the submission must be routed to the faculty supervisor and also the department chair. These departmental reviewers should first review the study application and all study documents before deciding to approve the study.  To sign-off your approval, you must click the "approve" radio button and then use your iRIS™ user name and password which, when entered, will serve as your electronic signature.  After departmental reviewer's approval, the study will be received in the IRB submission queue and the review process can begin.

A. No, you cannot reply directly to iRIS™ correspondence.  Each iRIS e-mail comes form an unattended mailbox.  If you need to correspond with the IRB office regarding a particular study, you may do so by logging in to iRIS™, selecting the appropriate study and selecting "Study Correspondence" under the "Submissions" tab.  You can also phone the IRB office at 407-823-2901 or 407-882-2012 or send an e-mail to: IRB@mail.ucf.edu  

A. There are three possible solutions for this:

* The security settings in your Internet browser may be prohibiting documents from being downloaded to your computer.  To check these settings in Windows XP, open your browser to your home page.  Click on Tools, Internet Options.  Click on the Security tab (the 2nd from the left), and the Custom Level button near the bottom of the dialog box.  You will see a list of all security settings that are customizable.  The settings are divided into groups.  You need to scroll down the list until you see the group heading is "Downloads."  Scroll through this list making sure all selections are "enabled."  Click "OK" at the bottom of the dialog box.  Answer "yes" to "Are you sure you want to change security settings for this zone?"  Click "OK" to exit the Internet Options box.

* Your Internet browser may be set to block pop-ups.  To change this setting, click on Tools, Pop-Up Blocker, and Turn off Pop-Up Blocker.  You can use the same steps to re-enable the pop-up blocker once you have finished your work in iRIS.

* You may have inadvertently downloaded a foreign toolbar that has a pop-up blocker.  It is advisable that you only use the tool bar(s) that are part of your Internet browser software.  Some examples of foreign toolbars are Yahoo! Tool Bar, Real Search Tool Bar, and Google Tool Bar.  To remove these tool bars, you will actually have to uninstall the program from your computer.  To do this, click on Start, Control Panel, and Add/Remove Programs.  This will give you a listing of all the software that has installed on your computer in alphabetical order.  Scroll through the list until you find the appropriate tool bar, highlight the program by clicking on it, and then click on the "Change/ Remove" button on the right-hand side of the screen.