Instructions for Researchers

Overview of Researcher Duties

  1. Complete LBC Researcher Onboarding
  2. Create a new Research Project
  3. Manage participant sign-ups
  4. Approve participants and activate Project Participation Questionnaires

Researcher Onboarding

  1. Read and understand the LBC Researcher Onboarding Manual.
  2. To run a research project using human subjects, you must first complete CITI (Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative) training and then have your research protocol approved by the UH Institutional Review Board (IRB) and its Committee on Human Studies (CHS). More information on submitting a protocol to IRB can be found here.

Creating a new Research Project

  1. Log in to the LBC website using your UH credentials, using the link on the sidebar at the right.
  2. Once you are logged in, the “USER DASHBOARD” button will appear. Click on this button or on this link to go to your personalized user dashboard.
  3. Click on the first link to Create New Project and fill out the LBC Study Submission Form.
  4. In addition to filling out the fields on the form, you must attach, in the format of .zip files, PDFs, and/or Word documents, the following:
    • 1) your entire protocol, including attachments (i.e., recruitment materials, consent forms, experimental stimuli, and your IRB approval letter),
    • 2) your Procedure Summary, a half-page summary of the duration of participant activities, and
    • 3) your Educational Handout, a one-page summary of your research, written in layperson-friendly language, that will be provided to students and instructors.
    • Examples of the Procedure Summary and Educational Handout can be found in the LBC Researcher Onboarding Manual.
  5. If you are a graduate student or visiting scholar, ensure that your faculty adviser/sponsor has checked and approved your entire Study Submission Form before you submit it.
  6. You can check the status of your submissions at any time from your user dashboard. Once the LBC committee has approved your project, it will show up on the “Current Projects” page. The order of projects displayed on the table is always randomized.

Managing Participants

  1. Participants will sign up via the “Current Projects” page by clicking on the “Sign up” link for your project.
  2. Participants will provide their contact information using the Sign-up Form for your project; once they submit the form, you will receive an automated email containing the participant’s name and UH email.
  3. You are responsible for communicating with the participant to confirm the date, time, and location for your study. If participants are late or do not show up, you are responsible for communicating with them directly via email to reschedule them or remove them from the study.

Approving Participants

  1. When a participant has successfully completed your study, provide them with your 1-page Educational Handout. This will help them with the educational component of LBC, in particular so that they can fill out the Project Participation Questionnaire.
  2. Go to your user dashboard. Under “My Projects”, click on the “Activate” link for your project. You will see a list of participants who have signed up for your project.
  3. To approve the participant, navigate to the “Participation in Project” column for the participant, and select “Yes”, then “Update”.
  4. The participant will then be “activated” and be able to fill out the Project Participation Questionnaire when they log into their own user dashboard.
  5. The participant’s questionnaire responses will be anonymized and sent to you, their instructor, and to the LBC Committee. Instructors are responsible for awarding credit to the student.
    • NOTE: If participants encounter any problems during their experience with your research project, they may directly contact the LBC Committee with a complaint. The LBC Committee will review the complaint to ensure that the researcher is complying with ethics guidelines for LBC and the UH Office of Research Compliance.

Additional Notes for Researchers

  • If you meet with participants in person, we encourage you to spend time with them after they complete your task to answer any questions they may have about the study! Ask them if they can see a way it relates to their class, and if not, help them find a connection. Talk to them about why your study is valuable to society. Thank them for their participation.
  • Once you have reached your limit of participants (generally around 30 per semester), contact the LBC Committee if you would like to increase your participant allocation or otherwise modify your study.
  • Notify the LBC Committee when you have finished collecting data. Each semester, the LBC Committee will reach out to all researchers to ask if they would like to keep their study up on the site, put it on hold for a semester, or remove it from the site.

Questions and Problems

If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions about LBC, please contact the LBC committee. Our contact info can be found on the sidebar at the right (at the bottom on mobile).

If you have questions about the use of human subjects in research, please contact the UH Office of Research Compliance.