What steps must anthropology professors take when they plan on having students in one of their regular courses do a project that entails research with living people?

Planning ahead is very important. It may take 1-2 months for you to go through the research protocol review process.

Determine the Applicability of Protocol Review Procedures for Research Involving Human Participants. That means you need to go to this CofC Web Site, and work with the flow chart you find there. Work through the flow chart. It may be helpful if you consult with someone from the Office of Research and Grants Administration to determine if the research you're having your students do: is exempt from review requires an expedited review, or requires a full review

Let's suppose you determine that your proposed class research project requires an expedited review. I made that determination when I proposed my Comparative Social Organization students undertake a life history project. Click this link to view a ".pdf" file I created. It contains a number of items associated with the approval process I went through with CofC's IRB (Institutional Review Board). They include: A form the IRB uses to notify professors of their approval of research. "The Human Research Review Application" I filled out, including typed answers to "Questions 11-20" of the application. The project instructions I planned on giving to 201 students. An "AAA Briefing Paper on Informed Consent" which I had students read and discuss before they undertook research. This is optional but a good idea. The forms I completed are found at this link. Look for the forms near the middle of the page.

I also participated in Required Training For Research Involving Human Participants. The link for this page is under IRB Training, at the top right of this page. I opted to do a ninety-minute, Web-Based Tutorial. I could have chosen to fulfill this education requirement by watching a video.A year after my students did this class project, I had an obligation to report back to CofC's IRB. Since I plan on having students in my ANTH 201 course do this project every year for the foreseeable future, I submitted a research protocol modification form to the IRB. The modification I was making was enrolling another set of research subjects, i.e., the people students will interview this year. I completed a research protocol modification form and submitted a typed description of the modification.