Instruction on the historical background, principles, and regulations that govern the protection of human research participants is important for understanding IRB activities and meeting ethical standards in the conduct of research that involves human participants.

Online training in this domain (including certification that training has been completed successfully) may be undertaken free of charge at the following web site (training time is 1-2 hours; it is self-paced and may be interrupted and resumed): http://cme.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/learning/humanparticipant-protections.asp