PEERRS FAQs

Other U-M offices may check PEERRS certification status as part of audit or misconduct investigations, including: University Audits, the Office of Research Compliance Review (ORCR), and the OVPR Research Integrity program.  School/colleges may check student and trainee certification status if utilizing PEERRS courses as a part of their unit-based Responsible Conduct of Research curriculum. 

To receive PEERRS course credit, you must read every page in the course and pass the certifaction test or complete the attestation.

Before you start

1. My LINC works best with Internet Explorer or Safari web browsers.
2. Turn off your web browser's pop-up blocker to ensure that the PEERRS course will open.  Courses display in a separate window.

At then end of a course:

Click the exit button to close the course.  The Exit button is located under the menu icon.  Exiting the course transfers the completion information and assessment/attestation results to the My LINC database and records your credit in the course.

Yes. It is not a requirement to hold PEERRS certification prior to sumbmitting a research transaction (e.g., PAF, HUM, TCP) for review by a U-M central office (e.g., ORSP, IRB Offices).  However, the required training must be completed before that transaction can be awarded or approved.

Yes, if you are engaged (i.e., interacting with the participants and/or their identifiable data) on a U-M human research study you may need to complete the PEERRS Human Subjects Research Protections (HSP) course or show proof of equivalent training.

  At U-M, HSP training is tracked only for those non-UM investigators who qualify to be listed on the IRB application; otherwise training requirements and oversight are handled by the investigator's local IRB.

If you have completed an equivalent human subjects protections training course (e.g., CITI) at your institution within the past three years, submit the training certificate to PEERRS to obtain a training waiver.  See Request a PEERRS Human Subjects Training Waiver for instructions.  

If you have not completed an equivalent training course:

1. Establish a U-M Friend Account using your current email address at:   https://friend.weblogin.umich.edu/friend/.  This email address will be your Login ID for PEERRS/My LINC.
2. Request PEERRS access.  See the PEERRS Access Request Form for instructions.
3. Upon confirmation that PEERRS access has been granted, select the Human Subjects Research Protections course from the PEERRS Portal and log into My LINC to complete the course.

For your PEERRS credit to display in the U-M IRB application (HUM), the email address used as your U-M Friend Account Login ID and the email address associated with you in the IRB application must be the same.

Yes, but only for human subjects protections regulatory training.  One commonly accepted equivalent is the basic or refresher courses for either biomedical or social-behavioral human subjects protections from the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI).

The equivalent training must have been completed within the past 3 years and cover content similar to PEERRS content.  Certifications from CITI must include the following, at a minimum:

U-M may accept another (non-CITI) course as a human subjects protections training equivalent upon ad-hoc review.  

To request a waiver for equivalent training, submit a certificate showing the course completion date and a list of course topics through the Request a PEERRS Human Subjects Certification Waiver form.

Which PEERRS courses you need to complete is dependent on your research activity and the type of research you do.

1. If you are/will be an investigator (whether "principal" or "participating") on a U-M sponsored award, you are required to hold a current certification in the following PEERRS courses:
   • Responsible Conduct of Research
   • Research Administration


2. If your research involves human participants as subjects, you are required to hold a current certification in the PEERRS Human Subjects Research Protections course or provide proof of equivalent training from another source to PEERRS.


3. If your research involves the use of export control technology, you are required to hold a current certification in the PEERRS Export Controls course.

As a U-M student, you may be assigned to complete a PEERRS course by an instructor as a class assignment or by the leads (e.g., principal investigator, study coordinator) on a research project on which you are/will be working.  Which course(s) you complete will be up to your school/college and/or the project leads. 

For each PEERRS course* you previously completed, you may receive up to three "reminder" emails to renew your certification:

1. First email  - 30 days prior to certification expiration.
2. Second email - upon certification expiration, only if renewal has not occurred.
3. Third email - 30 days after certification expiration, only if renewal has not occurred.

These emails are automated from the My LINC system and cannot be "turned off."  The volume you receive at any one time is dependent on how many courses you previously completed on the same day.  

These emails are notifications of the need to potentially renew certification only.  With each notification, you should determine whether or not you need to renew certification in any one PEERRS course based on your current research activity and/or current affiliation with U-M.

* Human Subjects Research Protections, Research Administration, and Responsible Conduct of Research courses only.

PEERRS certification in any one course is valid for a period of three years from the date of course completion. 

Automated renewal notices are sent from the My LINC system for most courses prior to the expiration date to alert you of the potential need to renew your certification depending on your current research activity.

My LINC/PEERRS accounts are typically limited to U-M employees and students and granted automatically using your U-M network credentials.  If you receive a "no account found" error upon logging in to My LINC, one of the following actions may apply:

• If you are a U-M Flint employee or student, log into My LINC/PEERRS using your U-M uniqname and UMICH (Kerberos, Level 1) password.  This password is different than your LAN password for the U-M Flint systems.


• If you are an external (non-UM) researcher who is/will be collaborating on a UM-based human subjects study and who does not hold current certification in a qualifying human subjects protections course, request PEERRS Guest Access.  
  • If you have completed human subjects protections training at your institution, request a Training Waiver instead.

If neither applies to you, email the U-M PEERRS group at peerrs@umich.edu for assistance.

Yes.

A new faculty, staff, or temporary employee (e.g., paid summer-term researcher) whose appointment/job has yet to officially begin can obtain access to PEERRS to proactively complete required regultory training.

1. Work with your U-M department to obtain a U-M Sponsored Affiliate Account.  This is a temporary U-M uniqname and email address.


2. After you have the Sponsored Affiliate Account, complete the PEERRS Access Request webform.


3. Go to the PEERRS home page to register for and complete the applicable PEERRS courses using your sponsored U-M uniqname and account password.

No.  Good Clinical Practice (GCP) is an international ethical and scientific quality standard for designing, conducting, recording, and reporting clinical research that involves human participants in research.  A sponsor (e.g., National Institutes of Health) may require that research involving a clinical trial and/or utilizing an FDA-approved protocol follow the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) Good Clinical Practice guidelines, including ICH-GCP training for investigators.  The biomedical version of GCP focuses on FDA requirements and the application of the informed consent processes for clinical research.  The social-behavioral version of GCP training focuses on the informed consent process for clinical research.

GCP training is not offered through PEERRS.  For U-M GCP training options, see:  HRPP Education Resources.

Human Subjects Protections (HSP) training focuses on the U.S. Common Rule regulations and requirements, including the ethical principles associated with protecting the human particpants in research and the codified protection methods such as Institutional Review Board (IRB) oversight and criteria for an appropriate informed consent process.  HSP training is required by federal sponsors for human subjects research, including research that qualifies for an IRB exemption.

Yes, if you are:

• An IT Manager and are listed on a Technology Control Plan (TCP), you need to take the PEERRS Export Controls course.
• A Study Coordinator for a U-M human subjects study, you need to take the PEERRS Human Subjects Research Protections course.
• In a Research Staff role on a U-M biomedical human subjects study, you need to take the PEERRS Human Subjects Research Protections course.

Likely not, though you are welcome to take all the courses for educational purposes.  To review who is required to (or might) take a particular PEERRS course, see:

Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) Protections - training requirements

Export Controls - training requirements

Human Subjects Research Protections - training requirements

Research Administration - training requirements

Responsible Conduct of Research - training requirements

Yes, if the project lead (principal investigator or "PI") or the project's study coordinator asks you to complete the PEERRS Human Subjects Protections course, you will need to:

1. Obtain a U-M Friend Account (guest computing) using a valid email address.
2. Request My LINC/PEERRS access using the same email address as your Friend Account.

No.  Certain funding sponsors (e.g, NSF, NIH) may require a description of the principal investigator's plan/program to train students and post-doctoral researchers in the nine components of Responsible Conduct of Research as part of the grant/contract proposal. 

Per federal sponsor guidelines, an online course cannot be the sole method of instruction, so the PEERRS Responsible Conduct of Research & Scholarship course and/or other PEERRS courses are not sufficient in themselves.  However, the PEERRS course may be recommended by your unit as a pre-requisite to in-person, discipline-specific training. 

Check with your unit to determine the applicable RCR training options offered through your School/College.

No.  If within the past 3 years you've completed a CITI human subjects protections basic course (biomedical or social-behavioral) or a CITI human subjects refresher course, you should submit a training waiver request to obtain credit for the U-M course.  As part of the waiver request, upload a copy of the CITI completion report that lists the course modules and the completion date for each. 

Provide the sponsor/institution with copy of the PEERRS HSP course outline comparing U-M course content to CITI's content to see if that satisfies their requirement. 

Yes. Contact the PEERRS group at peerrs@umich.edu to request an offline version of a PEERRS course that can best be reviewed using a screen reader.

Note:  learners using the offline version must submit the compliance test/attestation to the PEERRS group to receive course credit.

Yes.  Each of the Certification Reports in Tableau has a Download button at the top of the page. 

You may choose to download either a PDF or a screenshot image of the report results.