The IRB Office maintains working groups that support training and outreach activities for three main audiences, the IRB staff, IRB members, and research community.  Each of the three work groups consist of 4-6 members and meet on an as needed basis to plan training and outreach activities. In addition, the members from all three work groups meet monthly to provide updates and discuss any overlaps in training and outreach efforts. These monthly meetings are facilitated by the IRB Office Assistant Directors.  

Research Community: This work group is responsible for drafting and disseminating the monthly HRPP Newsletters for the research community. In addition, this work group plans as needed trainings and outreach sessions for the research community, based on need. This group also coordinates with the PREP team on research community training needs.  

IRB Staff: This group is primarily responsible for planning the HRPP and IRB training sessions held during the weekly staff meetings. The group coordinates with the IRB Office leadership on scheduling of training sessions based on office needs.   

IRB Members: The IRB Member Working Group (IRBMWG) is primarily responsible for developing and implementing training and outreach opportunities for IRB members (in conjunction with IRB Panel Administrators), in addition to coordinating new IRB Member orientation and helping with IRB member and Chair evaluations. The IRBMWG also oversees the IRB Member Manual content (still under development), ensuring that is up to date and serves as a helpful resource for IRB members. The IRB Member Liaisons are members of the IRBMWG.  

Most IRB analysts will serve as the IRB offices point of contact.  Expectations and resources, including a list of referrals, can be found here.   

• Schedule: The POC assignment schedule is made monthly by the IRB Administrator, in conjunction with the Team Leads. The assignments are listed on the IRB Scheduling calendar in Outlook. If changes to the POC schedule are needed, staff are expected to identify a replacement/switch and update the calendar accordingly.  
• Log: The POC log should be completed daily and is available here. At the end of each calendar year, a new POC log is created for use starting January 1.  
• Internal experts list: Available here: Internal Expert POCs.  
• External contacts list: UW-Madison Resources
• Point of Contact Guidance: Guidance on expectations and resources for IRB analysts serving as Point of Contact (POC) for the IRBs Office. 

The purpose of AskARROW is to address technical issues related to the ARROW system, provide relevant guidance when possible, and escalate issues as necessary. Expectations and procedures are as follows: 

• Subset of IRB staff monitor the inbox throughout the day. 
• Triages and prioritizing technical issues, escalating urgent or unresolved issues to the ARROW IT team via the JIRA ticket system.
• Provides response including resolution or relevant guidance when possible or indicates a pending update when escalation is required. 
• Forwards non-technical issues or general IRB guidance questions to AskTheIRB@hsirb.wisc.edu and/or IRBReliance@wisc.edu. 
• Uses “reply all” to ensure the response includes AskARROW. Upon resolution, moves the email to the cabinet for storage.

A subset of IRB analysts responds to questions emailed to AskTheIRB.  Expectations and procedures are as follows:    

• Team members monitor the inbox throughout the day.  
• Whenever possible, a response is provided by the next business day.  
• Email color categories have been designated for each Ask team member, and for particular groups.  Team members tag any emails that they will respond to with their own color category, unless they are forwarding to another group (e.g., Reliant). In this example, the email would be tagged with the Reliant color category and forwarded to irbreliance@wisc.edu.   
• Resources listed in the POC Resources section may be used to refer emails, as necessary.   
• Ask team members communicate their availability and any workload issues that might limit their availability to respond to emails to other team members.   
• If an email is previewed and not categorized, it is marked as “unread”.  
• Technical ARROW issues are tagged as ARROW emails and forwarded to the AskARROW@hsirb.wisc.edu account.    
• Consultation and presentation requests are handled by the HS and MRR Team managers.   
• Completed responses are filed in the respective month’s folder. 

Consultation requests: The HS and MRR team managers are responsible for triaging consultation requests received through AskTheIRB.  After scheduling the consultation and meeting with the consultee(s), the staff member must complete the Post Consultation Survey themselves as well as forward the survey to the attendees. Procedures for handling these requests can be found here: Consultation Scheduling.  

Presentation requests: Presentation requests may be received through the Qualtrics presentation request form sent to the AskTheIRB email account, or through correspondence with IRB Office staff and/or leadership.  Presentation requests to address a small research group or class will generally be addressed by the HS or MRR team manager, whereas requests for content not previously covered, or topics for the broader research community will be addressed by the Research Community Training Group.