Tutorial Approach

These tutorials cover information about implementing integration between Huron Portal-based IRB sites and the IRB Exchange. For these tutorials, implementations in Huron IRB will be used as a reference since they represent a complete integration between an IRB site and the IRB Exchange. It is highly recommended that even clients who are not currently planning on deploying IRB 8.1 or later create a Huron IRB reference store to refer to code examples and workflow configuration examples.

IRB 8.1 and later come with significant changes across the board for the IRB solution for the Single IRB of Record feature, which may help inform the changes you need in your site. These changes include:

  • Entirely new workflows for sites, external studies and reportable new information across institutions
  • For external multi-site studies, the SmartForm has been split between the external study and its linked site project
  • Many new notifications, especially those informing another institution's personnel
  • Security policies adjustments to account for the new workflows and separation of studies and sites

Note: Instructions on how to outfit an IRB site with Single IRB of Record functionality is outside the scope of these tutorials, which are focused primarily on the integration between an IRB site and the IRB Exchange. For information about implementing the Single IRB of Record workflows, SmartForm changes, etc., refer to the Huron IRB downloads page which contains workflow diagrams, SmartForm specifications and other useful technical documents.

IMPORTANT
Integration is complex. These tutorials are largely meant to be followed in order, but there are many inter-related pieces. Several of the early tutorials are essentially building blocks of understanding IRB-to-IRB Exchange integration. Therefore, many of the tutorials may not contain a complete instruction for implementing a working part of the functionality, but rather a component of it that will be used by a later tutorial to complete a part of the functionality.

Planning an integration project between a non-IRB 8.1 or later Portal site and the IRB Exchange could involve the following:

  • Learning the business and high level technical principles of the Single IRB of Record functionality and the IRB Exchange
  • Identifying the major components of the integration functionality
  • Planning the software work to implement integrations based on IRB 8.1 or later as an example, these tutorials and/or assistance from your Huron Services project manager
  • Implementing the integration and testing it on the test IRB Exchange environment provided by Huron