If your project is a personal interest project and is not for a grade, a course, or a thesis, and is not intended to contribute to generalizable academic knowledge, your project does not require interaction with the IRB at all, as it does not count as research by the federal government. As noted before, some Venture Grants require IRB interaction.

If you believe that your project falls into one of the below categories, save a copy of the relevant form, fill it out, and email it to the IRB chair.

• Projects Not Defined as Research: Your project may fall into a category of research that the federal government does not define as research and that therefore does not require you to fill out an IRB proposal. Such projects include journalism, oral history, and other projects in which you are only studying individuals and are not drawing broader social or historical conclusions.
  
  
• Educational Research: If you are carrying out research on educational practices, even if they involve children, you may be eligible for the educational research exemption. This exemption does not include interviews with or surveys of adults (teachers, school administrators).
  
  
• Interaction Research: If you are carrying out research with adults limited only to one or more of three types of research (interviews, surveys, observation in public places) or are only using educational tests with children, you may be eligible for the interaction research exemption.
  
  
• Benign Behavioral Research: If you are carrying out psychological or marketing research with adults that involves no deception (or that involves deception that you can provide minimal information about in the consent process), you may be eligible for the benign behavioral intervention research exemption. Note that this exemption has a special consent form with the same title that you must use with this exemption.
  
  
• Secondary Research: If you are carrying out secondary research involving information that has already been collected for someone else's research or non-research project, or that you have collected previously for different research or non-research project, you may be eligible for the secondary research exemption.