What counts as human-subjects research
If a project is designed to produce generalizable knowledge and it collects data from or about living people — including a student thesis, a class research project meant for publication, or secondary analysis of a dataset with identifiers — it needs IRB review first. Course assignments that stay in the classroom and program-improvement surveys usually do not, but the IRB makes that call, not the person doing the work.
The timeline
Exempt determinations often come back within a week or two; expedited review runs three to five weeks; full-board review is tied to a monthly meeting date. Build that time into the project. The office runs a short online training that most reviewers require the researcher and any assistants to complete before approval is issued.
In and around Porter Falls
Research at Porter is applied and partner-driven: a Valley Health quality project, a DNR study on the Porter River, a manufacturing-process fix for a county employer. The Office of Research & Sponsored Programs handles the review and paperwork so the work can start on time.
The practical details
Applies to: Research with living people: surveys, interviews, experiments, and analysis of identifiable private data. Review before data collection: Always — approval cannot be granted retroactively. Levels: Exempt, expedited and full board, decided by the IRB, not the researcher. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (Millwright Hall, Room 340). Call (715) 555–0230 or email research@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.