Description:

Program Overview

The Research Coordinator Plus (RC+) program was developed as an education and training program geared towards new research coordinators, those new to UIC, and more experienced research coordinators. 

ELEGIBILITY:

RC+ Program participants must be staff, students or faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago (including Rockford & Peoria campuses) or the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

• This program consists of (5) Competencies:
  • CITI Training
  • Overview of Clinical Research
  • UIC Lectures & Resources
  • Best Practice Hour Seminars
  • Master Classes
• Within each Competency are different Requirements. Those enrolled in the RC+ Program must complete all 20 requirements to finish the certificate program.
• Courses, as they are made available, will go under their respective Requirement. To satisfy a Requirement, enrollees must complete at least (1) Course per Requirement. See the table below for the full list of Competencies and Requirements.
• Upon finishing a Requirement, you will be marked "Complete."
• The CITI Training and Overview of Clinical Research contains external courses. Once completed, please upload the certificates to the training system.
• Once each Competency's Requirements are satisfied, you will be issued a certificate of completion for the RC+ Program.

NOTE: If you enrolled in the "CCTS Research Coordinator Certificate Program - Registration" (RC+) course before November 25, 2025, please do not register for this program.

*LOGIN TO REGISTER*

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Drug Discovery

Part of Program(s): The Research Coordinator (RC+) Certificate Program

Description:

This seminar will cover the IND submission process, specifically focusing on:

1. Investigator initiated IND
2. Single patient (emergency use) IND
3. Requirements after IND is approved for use

Speaker: 
Darlene Kitterman, MBA
Director, Clinical Trials Office
University of Illinois Cancer Center

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #3: Medicine Development & Regulation

Contact: Sudeshna De, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Graduate Students, Pre & Post-Doctoral Trainees, Faculty

Topic: Research Ethics

Description:

Ready to submit a research project, but not sure where to start? This practical overview will walk faculty through the IRB process at UIC, including which projects require IRB review or submission to OPRS, the different types of review, and when single IRB (sIRB) review may be required or appropriate. We’ll also cover tips and resources for navigating UIC Research, UIC’s electronic research submission platform.

Speaker: 
Rachel Olech 
Senior Regulatory Specialist
UIC Center for Clinical & Translational Science 

Clinical Research Investigators Seminar Series (CRISS): This training seminar series is intended to provide faculty and other investigators with information and skills needed to conduct clinical research at UIC at all stages of a study’s lifecycle.

Contact: Sudeshna De, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Research Ethics

Part of Program(s): The Research Coordinator (RC+) Certificate Program

Description:

Submitting research projects for IRB review can be a stressful experience. Many people wonder what steps they can take to minimize requests for modifications. This presentation will go over the common reasons for these determinations. In addition, this talk will address concrete ways researchers can prevent or minimize these types of issues, and provide advice on how to respond to the IRB. Finally, this talk will go over steps researchers can take to streamline the submission process.

Speaker: 
Rachel Olech 
Senior Regulatory Specialist
UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Science

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #2: Ethical and Participant Safety Considerations

Contact: Sudeshna De, ccts-training@uic.edu

Topic: Biomedical Informatics/Data Science

Description:

QUICKSet, or “Query UIC Knowledge Set,” is the CCTS Biomedical Informatics Core built version of the i2b2 (Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside) framework. The purpose of this tool is to allow researchers to access de-identified clinical data from the UI Health system to obtain aggregate patient counts. QUICKSet can facilitate a study by helping researchers to quickly establish the feasibility of carrying out a research study or clinical trial, work through hypothesis creation by continually modifying their own searches, and to identify potential cohorts for clinical trials.

Completion of this training module is required to gain access to the QUICKSet system. To request a consultation or supplementary service at CCTS, please visit Research Ally.

Topic: Human Subject Protections

Description:

CIRTification: Community Involvement in Research Training is a human research protections training program designed especially for community partners. If you will be involved in research and responsible for recruiting research participants, obtaining informed consent, or collecting data, this training is for you.  This course will cover:

• Introduction to Research: The basic terminology, activities, and people involved in research and various ethical considerations.
• Research History: Some research abuses that have happened in the past and the rules we have now to prevent those abuses.  This module also introduces the goals of community engagement in research and the important responsibilities shared by community research partners.
• Eligibility & Recruitment: The importance of adhering to study inclusion/exclusion criteria and best practices identifying and recruiting research participants.
• Informed Consent: The key components of informed consent, the kinds of information included in the consent form, how to respond to participants’ questions about enrollment and withdrawal, and discussion of practical challenges and good practices.
• The Institutional Review Board: The people on the IRB, the process of submitting to the IRB, and the criteria that IRBs apply to the review of research.
• Collecting & Protecting Data: How to protect participant privacy and keep data safe and confidential during collection, transport, and storage.
• Handling Issues in the Field: What do to if you suspect a co-worker of falsifying data, run into a study participant outside of work, and get challenging questions from study participants.

Position: Faculty

Topic: Career Development

Description:

AI will be the feature of the Fall 2026 PI411 sessions.

* Please note that for Fall 2026, we are creating one registration page for the PI411 seminars from August to November so that registrants can easily keep track of upcoming seminars in their calendar.

8/12/2026 - AI Blueprint: Building a Foundation of Mechanics and Responsibility

This foundational online workshop demystifies the core concepts and terminology of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Generative AI. Participants will explore practical prompting frameworks and responsible use principles that will help confidently integrate these tools into daily workflows.

Please Opt in to use UIC AI tools by clicking on the link below before the session

https://help.uillinois.edu/TDClient/37/uic/Requests/ServiceOffering/384/Access-to-UIC-AI-Toolset/Request

9/09/2026 - Describe my journey in AI

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we work, learn, and create—but opinions on its impact vary widely. Join us for a candid conversation among faculty with diverse experience and perspectives on AI. Through personal stories and practical examples, we'll explore the promises, pitfalls, and realities of living and working with AI today.

10/14/2026: AI Ethics

Artificial intelligence offers substantial benefits for clinical care, research, and education, but its rapid adoption also raises significant ethical, legal, and institutional concerns. This talk will examine AI through medical ethics and sociotechnical analysis, with attention to bias, privacy, hallucinations, misinformation, automation bias, and cognitive deskilling. The session will also address legal liability, accountability gaps, and the risk of “plausible deniability” when decisions are attributed to algorithms or vendors. Participants will analyze practical cases involving AI selection, implementation, and oversight.

11/11/2026: AI as a research Aide: Safe, Ethical, and Compliant Workflows for Translational Scientists

Join us for a practical, interactive seminar on incorporating UIC-approved AI tools into your clinical and translational research workflow. Designed for junior faculty, nurse scientists, and research staff, this session covers institutional compliance and NIH/journal guidelines, plus live demos of safe AI applications—from literature synthesis and synthetic data generation to grant logic stress-testing. Learn how to offload administrative friction and accelerate your science while maintaining rigorous data privacy and ethical standards.

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Study/Site/Lab Management

Part of Program(s): The Research Coordinator (RC+) Certificate Program

Description:

The CCTS Master Class seminar series helps clinicians, research coordinators/specialists and other health research personnel develop a better understanding of conducting human subjects research at UIC.  These immersive training workshops enable participants to implement best practices for human research subject protection, recruitment, study conduct, and data safety/security.

The Master Class on Project Management: Study Start-Up will be held over 2 days, about 2-2:30 hours per day, and is designed to increase research coordinators’ knowledge and confidence regarding project management, with a focus on study implementation.

When: Wednesday, October 21st, from 1 PM-3:30 PM and Thursday, October 22nd, from 1 PM-3:30 PM

Register for Zoom link! 

*The program will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to registrants for this seminar

Contact: Sudeshna De,  ccts-training@uic.edu

Topics: 

• Initiating a Study
• Creating a Data Management Plan
• Other short topics, through the lens of study staff

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Research Ethics

Part of Program(s): The Research Coordinator (RC+) Certificate Program

Description:

What is Single IRB? What is the difference between a single IRB and a local IRB? This session will focus on the describing the single IRB (SIRB) process when UIC is an engaged research institution. We will go over the process for submitting for single IRB (SIRB) review and the necessary agreements to document reliance both when UIC is serving as the IRB of record and when UIC is ceding review to another IRB.

Speaker: 
Jovana Lombardo, MPA
IRB Associate Director/Single IRB Point of Contact
Office for the Protection of Research Subjects

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #2: Ethical and Participant Safety Considerations

Contact: Sudeshna De, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Clinical Trial Operations/Finances

Part of Program(s): The Research Coordinator (RC+) Certificate Program

Description:

This seminar will describe the potential review processes required to obtain regulatory approval for clinical research conducted at UIC, when these reviews are required, and how to submit projects for review.

Speaker: 
Darlene Kitterman, MBA
Director, Clinical Trials Office
University of Illinois Cancer Center

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #4: Clinical Trials Operations

Contact: Sudeshna De, ccts-training@uic.edu

Topic: Human Subject Protections

Description:

CIRTification Refresher: Continuing Education

This course is for users who have completed CIRTification: Community Involvement in Research Training and are required to take continuing education in human research protections per their institution's requirements. If you have not completed CIRTification: Community Involvement in Research Training, please complete that course first before taking this refresher.

In this course, we will review key concepts and cover some new ideas. We hope you gain new knowledge and skills for research.  This course will cover:

• Overview of Key Concepts: Review of the research process, the people involved and the tasks.
• Doing Trustworthy Research: Review the importance of following the IRB-approved research protocol, keeping data safe, and protecting privacy and confidentiality. You will also learn how to handle some tricky situations, including problems that may be unexpected.
• Overview of Informed Consent: Review key components of informed consent and good practices for responding to participants’ questions about enrollment, withdrawal and other issues.
• Research in Different Communities: Review considerations for doing research with people from different communities, including people who do not speak English, adults who cannot legally make decisions for themselves, and people who may have trouble saying “no” to an invitation to research.