What is the Institutional Review Board (IRB)?

The WOU IRB is a group of WOU faculty, staff, and community members charged with providing oversight for all human subjects research conducted in association with WOU. The purpose of IRB oversight of research is to assure the protection of the research participants, the researcher, and the university. The research community has a responsibility to ensure that the treatment of human participants in research meets the highest ethical standard.

All faculty and staff must submit for IRB review any research project involving human subjects. IRB approval for these projects must be granted prior to the initiation of any study activities, including recruitment or analysis of existing data.