What is NOT Human Subject Research?

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The Office for Human Research Protections has established regulations at Randolph-Macon College.

When there is any doubt as to whether or not a study could qualify as human subject research, you should submit an abstract to the IRB Chair at irb@rmc.edu to review and make a determination.

Types of Data and Data Collection Procedures that Do NOT require IRB Approval

  1. Class projects:  Class projects are projects that occur as part of an RMC course and are generally designed to teach the RMC student about research. Classroom data collection does not require IRB review if all of the following is true:
    • The data collected contains no personal questions or other personal information that could stigmatize an individual;
    • No identifying information is recorded to link a person with the data;
    • The participants in the project are not from a vulnerable population;
    • The data collection does not involve more than minimal risk;
    • Data collection does not occur outside of the classroom.
    • The data collected does not leave the classroom setting;
    • No employee or student is receiving financial compensation for collecting, organizing, analyzing, or reporting the data.
    • The results of the research will not leave the classroom setting (i.e., will not be published or presented externally, presented to individuals outside the instructor and enrolled students, etc.)

      Any other classroom data collection which does not satisfy all of the requirements above is subject to IRB review. 
  2. Data collectionfor internal departmental, school, or other institutional administrative purposes (i.e., teaching evaluations, customer service surveys).
  3. Interviews or other information collection between students in a class and an external client, when the instructor has contracted with the client (Problem or Project-based learning courses).  
  4. Publicly available secondary data that is not restricted. 
  5. Projects that are limited to visual observation of public behavior with no direct human interaction, performed in locations where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. 
  6. Projects that have already been approved by another IRB.  Please contact the irb at irb@rmc.edu if you are conducting a project that has already been approved by another IRB.