Before you can officially begin conducting research with vertebrate animals, you need to get trained, certified and added to your faculty member’s animal research protocol. The IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) oversees all research on vertebrate animals, and everyone involved must do some basic training courses. The training is all online, and there are a couple of additional parts to take care of:
An additional piece to the puzzle related to conducting research using vertebrate animals is your enrollment in the Occupational Health and Safety Program (OHSP).
Enrollment in OHSP is required for all students, faculty and staff who work with animals at Radford University.
OHSP training, information about the program, and required forms to be completed may be found on Radford University's Desire 2 Learn (D2L) platform.
Search for "Environmental Health and Safety Training." Your professor will request access to the training course for you from EHS.
Once your professor has requested access for you from EHS, go to "Content" and find the folder marked "OHS Training - Animal Contact." Select that folder and click on the link "OHSP Training" at the top, just under the description of the folder. That will open the animated training slides and embedded quiz.
The 3 forms in the folder marked “Required Documents to Complete for OHSP Enrollment” are the last piece of the health and safety evaluation to complete the IACUC training puzzle. The stuff offered (a physical, vaccinations) is optional, but you do have to fill everything out and sign them regardless of what you choose. Don’t forget to sign the form.
It is strongly recommended that you be up to date on your tetanus shots. Download these forms, open them in Adobe Acrobat, fill them out, and sign them electronically, then submit them through the secure Dropbox link at the top of the D2L required forms folder.
If you do not have Adobe or cannot get the signature function to work for you properly, fill out the forms, print them, sign them, and then upload a scan or photo of the signed forms (all pages!) to the secure Dropbox.