CITI training
One line on the checklist, several people's names.
Both Herzing IRB applications carry the same requirement in the same words: attach a copy of your CITI certification, free to Herzing affiliates through Canvas. The line is short and says nothing about which course, how recent, or who else on the project needs one — which is why it is among the most commonly unmet items in an otherwise finished folder.
Olivia Tremblay, MSN, RN · filed 2026-08-23
Attach a CITI certificate with the application — Herzing affiliates take the course free through Canvas. The checklist names no track and no renewal window, so take what Herzing provides and verify currency against its current IRB material before filing.
What does Herzing actually require?
One checklist line, repeated identically on the Research Protocol Application and on the Healthcare Improvement or Innovation Project Application: a copy of your CITI Certification, with a parenthesis noting that certification is free for Herzing affiliates through Canvas. That is the whole of the published requirement on the forms themselves.
Three things follow from how little it says. It applies whichever application you are completing, so the improvement route carries the same training obligation as the research route. It is an attachment, not a declaration — a sentence saying you completed training is not the item. And because Herzing's own course sits inside Canvas, the version you will be offered is already chosen for you; the question is not usually which course to buy but whether the course you took covers the work you have designed.
The requirement is not aimed only outward, either. Herzing's Bylaws oblige board members to complete and maintain training in human subjects research, naming CITI or another approved programme, and set the same condition on the Chair and the IRB Administrator, who may be removed for failing to keep certification current. The people reading your folder hold the obligation you are being asked to evidence, which is a useful thing to remember when the attachment feels like paperwork.
Whose certificate goes in the folder?
The checklist says "your," and most folders stop there. The application then asks, in the Methodology box, that you identify all personnel who will participate in the research and outline their qualifications — and on the Research Protocol Application the faculty who signs does so as Co-PI. Between those two facts, the honest reading is that the certificate line is a floor rather than a ceiling.
| Person | Where they appear | What to attach | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| You, as principal investigator | Step 1, and the signature block | Your certificate, without question | The checklist names it explicitly |
| Faculty sponsor or project faculty | Step 2, and the signature block; on the research route, as Co-PI | Theirs, if their own record is not already held | A co-investigator carries responsibility for the conduct of the work |
| Program Chair | The third signature line on the improvement application | Nothing, ordinarily — the signature is an endorsement of the filing | Confusing this line with an investigator role delays the wrong signature |
| Co-investigator or analyst | The personnel list inside Methodology | Theirs, where they will touch identifiable data | Naming someone with no training attached invites the question |
| A service handling your data | The data security plan, and the personnel account | Not a CITI certificate, but a named agreement and controls | Vendors are covered by the plan rather than by training |
| Someone who only hands out flyers | Recruitment materials, if they speak to participants | Ask the board rather than guess | Contact with prospective participants is where the line usually falls |
Where the table says "ask the board," that is the honest answer rather than a hedge: Herzing's published forms do not settle it, so the question belongs to Herzing's current IRB handbook or portal, or to the IRB inbox, before the folder is sent rather than after.
Which CITI course fits your project?
CITI's human subjects research series runs in two tracks — biomedical, and social-behavioural-educational — each available at a foundations level and a fuller comprehensive level, with shorter refresher courses for people who have already completed a basic course. Around those sit topic and role-specific offerings: good clinical practice, responsible conduct of research, courses built for board members and institutional officials, and standalone modules on things like the revised Common Rule and single-board review.
For most Herzing projects the choice is made by the Canvas course, and the sensible test is a design test rather than a catalogue test. If your project surveys or interviews colleagues, observes a process, or analyses records already collected for care, the social-behavioural-educational material is the closer fit. If it introduces a clinical intervention, involves specimens, or touches anything a device or drug regulator would recognise, the biomedical material is. If your design sits across both, say so when you ask which course to complete, rather than picking the shorter one.
One thing not to do: substitute a different institution's training because you happen to hold it. It may well be accepted — plenty of boards recognise a current certificate from elsewhere — but that is a decision for the board, and the way to obtain it is to ask, attaching what you hold.
Certificate or completion report — which do you attach?
CITI produces two documents and they are not interchangeable. The completion certificate is issued once a course's requirements are met and is the short proof that you finished it. The completion report is the longer record: the modules taken, the dates, the scores. Both live under the learner's own reports area, and both can be downloaded or shared from there.
Herzing's checklist asks for a copy of your certification, so the certificate satisfies the line as written. In practice the report answers a question the certificate cannot — which modules the course actually covered — so where a reviewer might wonder whether the training matches the design, attaching both costs nothing. Save each as a file named for the person and the completion date, so that a folder holding three people's records does not need explaining.
How recent must the certificate be?
Herzing's application does not print a renewal window, and any figure quoted around the internet belongs to some other institution's rules. What CITI itself makes clear is that the requirement is set by the organisation rather than by CITI: organisations assign courses to their learners. What CITI does control is access. An independent subscription runs for a set period from purchase or activation, and its completion reports carry a matching validity; learners whose access comes through an institutional affiliation can view course materials for as long as that affiliation is active and the institution keeps providing that content.
That second point has a practical edge for anyone finishing a programme. If your CITI access exists because of your affiliation, download and keep your own copies of the certificate and the report now, while you can reach them. A record you cannot retrieve is, for filing purposes, a record you do not have.
So the currency question resolves into: complete the course Herzing provides, note the completion date, and confirm the renewal expectation against Herzing's current IRB handbook or portal — or simply ask the IRB inbox, which is faster than guessing and leaves you with the answer in writing.
What does a lapsed certificate actually cost?
Not your competence. What lapses is the evidence, and the cost is procedural rather than intellectual:
- The checklist item goes unmet, which makes the submission incomplete regardless of how good the rest of the folder is.
- An incomplete submission waits. Herzing's board meets on a published calendar with materials-due dates alongside each meeting; the Statement of Principles sets applications to reach the Chair by 5:00 p.m. Central Time on the first Monday of each eight-week academic term. Nobody outside the board predicts what a review takes — but what it costs to miss a deadline is arithmetic anyone can do.
- A co-investigator's lapse is your lapse, because you named them and their qualifications in Methodology.
- Lapsing mid-project meets continuing review. Approved work stays under the board's oversight and is re-evaluated at least annually under the Bylaws, and a training record that expired somewhere in between is a fair question at that point.
- Renewal is shorter than the original. CITI's refresher courses exist for exactly this, so a lapse is an afternoon rather than a crisis — provided you notice it before the folder is otherwise finished.
The pattern is the same one that governs the site permission pocket: the item that holds a complete folder is rarely the difficult one. It is the one nobody scheduled.
What to do next
Open your CITI account today, before anything else in the folder is built, and note the completion date on every record you hold. Then list everyone your application will name and ask, for each, whether a certificate travels with them. Ask for the free application review and tell us who is on the project. Back comes a written reading of whose records the folder needs, whether the course you hold matches the design you have written, and what else is missing from the checklist while you are at it. Prefer to hand the whole folder across? That is how the practice works, and the FAQ covers what happens once the submission goes in. The project stays yours end to end; the board's determination stays the board's.
Sources
- Herzing University, Institutional Review Board (IRB) — the page linking both applications, the bylaws, the CITI resource and the meeting calendar — herzing.edu/institutional-review-board-irb
- Herzing University, IRB Application for Research Protocol Approval — the CITI certification checklist line, and the Methodology instruction to identify all personnel and their qualifications — the Research Protocol Application (PDF)
- Herzing University, IRB Application for Improvement or Innovation Project Approval — the same CITI line on the improvement route — the Improvement or Innovation Project Application (PDF)
- Herzing University IRB, Getting Started: Read this First — which application applies and where it is sent — Getting Started (PDF)
- Herzing University IRB, Bylaws — training obligations for board members, the Chair and the Administrator, and continuing oversight of approved work — Bylaws (PDF)
- Herzing University IRB, Statement of Principles — the submission deadline and the review paths — Statement of Principles (PDF)
- CITI Program, Human Subjects Research series — the biomedical and social-behavioural-educational tracks, foundations and comprehensive levels, refreshers and role-specific courses — about.citiprogram.org (HSR series)
- CITI Program, Frequently Asked Questions — subscription and affiliation access, completion certificates and reports, and who assigns course requirements — about.citiprogram.org (FAQs)
Herzing revises its IRB forms and pages without notice, and CITI revises its catalogue; where this article and Herzing's current IRB handbook or portal disagree, the current material governs. This practice is independent and is not affiliated with Herzing University or with CITI Program.
the other tabs in this file