Getting Digital Certificates
The next step in preparing for your Huron IRB Exchange accounts is to get the digital certificates you need to secure your communications with the IRB Exchange, based on the results of your earlier planning. This includes the certificates you will purchase to support your production IRB Exchange accounts, as well as those you will request for free to support your test IRB Exchange accounts.
To get certificates, take these steps:
Production certificates. Purchase 2048-bit public certificates from an official certificate authority for your production systems to correspond to the IRB Exchange production accounts to be used on those systems. You'll provide the public key for each of these certificates when you request your accounts from Huron, and add the name of the public key file into your planning spreadsheet. For suggested certificate authorities to choose from, see Certificate Authorities.
Test certificates. Request test certificates from Huron to correspond with the test IRB Exchange accounts you need.
More Information About Certificate Requirements
Both the IRB Exchange test and production systems require the use of certificates for authentication and authorization. For production, the IRB Exchange requires a certificate from an official certificate authority (CA), while the IRB Exchange test site allows you to use a certificate that has been signed by Huron's IRB Exchange certificate authority. These test certificates enable you to use the IRB Exchange test site without purchasing additional certificates from a CA.
Next Steps
When you have all the account and certificate information collected into the spreadsheet, request your IRB Exchange accounts.