Consistent with Federal Research Guidelines, GCU requires all researchers to successfully obtain research ethics certification prior to initiating their IRB application for approval to conduct human research. Students, faculty, and staff will receive five-year research ethics certification upon successful completion of pre-defined courses hosted by the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). Select the appropriate link below to be taken to CITI.
- For GCU student researchers (@my.gcu.edu), click here.
- For adjunct faculty (@my.gcu.edu), click here.
- For full time faculty and staff (@gcu.edu), click here.
After accessing the appropriate link, you’ll be asked to log in. Enter the same login credentials you use for the GCU Portal. 
The next steps will differ depending on your role and prior use of the CITI training website. Review the following list to determine what to do next:
- If this is your first time logging into CITI, select I don't have a CITI Program account and I need to create one. See the "Create a New CITI account" heading below for a step by step guide, or click here to be taken there automatically.
- If you have completed CITI training within the past 5 years and would like to access your records, simply log in with your GCU email and password.
- If you had a pre-existing CITI account that used GCU email address on file, your account has already been migrated for single-sign capabilities and you were likely logged in automatically.
- If you had a pre-existing CITI account that did NOT use your GCU email address on file, select I already have a CITI Program account. Your previous account will be merged with your GCU email address for single-sign on capabilities the next time you log in. See the "Associate your SSO account with a CITI Program Account" heading below for a step by step guide, or click here to be taken there automatically.
- Select I already have a CITI Program account. A new section titled, “Link to an existing CITI Program account” will appear below. Enter your login information for CITI. If you created your original CITI account using the instructions provided by the College of Doctoral Studies, then your CITI username should be your GCU email address (@my.gcu.edu or @gcu.edu for faculty). It's possible that you may have created an alternate username, however.
NOTE If you are unable to recall your CITI account username or password, click the link below that says, “Did you forget your CITI Program account username or password?” and follow the prompts provided. CITI can send your username to the email address on file.
- If you log in successfully, you will be taken to the Welcome page for CITI. Your account is now linked to your GCU email for single-sign on capabilities in the future.
- Select, “I don’t have a CITI Program account and I need to create one”. A new section titled, “Create a new CITI Program account” will appear below. Select the blue button to continue.
- You will be taken to the Welcome page for CITI. Your account is now linked to your GCU email for single-sign on capabilities in the future.
Accessing the Required CITI Modules
- First, log into CITI.
- Click View Courses next to Grand Canyon University.
- Scroll down until you can see the "Learner Tools for Grand Canyon University". Then select Add a Course.
- You will be prompted with a series of questions. Answer these questions based on the instructions provided in your classroom, residency, or from your instructor. It is important to follow the instructions correctly in order to generate the correct CITI training modules.
- Click Submit at the bottom.
FAQs and Errors
Additional information and resources can be found through the links below:
For Students:
- CITI Training Information in the DC Network (only accessible to doctoral learners)
- CITI Training Registration Guide in the Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching (CIRT) website
For Faculty:
- CITI Training Faculty Registration in the Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching (CIRT) website
- CITI Training Faculty Registration in the DC Network (only accessible to doctoral faculty)
The training courses in CITI are assigned automatically based on your responses to questions on the Select Curriculum page. The required training will be different based on your role and reason for completing CITI training. If you are unsure how to respond to the questions on the Select Curriculum page, please see instructions in your classroom, or reach out to your instructor.
If the required modules do not appear, or if you need to generate different ones for your specific degree / research requirements, you can try re-answering the initial questions to generate the correct modules. See the “Accessing the Required CITI Modules” heading above for instructions.
If your account was created prior to December of 2015, your training records are still tied to that account. To access training records from that account, you can log into CITI using your original username and password.
- Navigate to the CITI login page.
- If you remember your old login credentials, enter the information and select Log In. If you do not know either of these pieces of information, click the Forgot? button to the right of the appropriate field.
- If you’ve forgotten your username, you’ll be asked to provide an email address. If you’ve forgotten your password, you’ll be asked to provide an email address and your original CITI username. Provide the appropriate information and check your email inbox.
- Once you have your username and/or have reset your password, log in. Your training records will be available through the Records tab at the top of the page.
If this situation applies to you, navigate to the GCU SSO Portal for CITI by clicking the appropriate link in the instructions at the top of this article. Once you’ve logged in with your GCU information, you will see one of two pages depending on the history of your account:
- If you are logged into CITI automatically, it means you already had a CITI account associated with your GCU email address. To merge your GCU account with an alternative account, please contact Technical Support. We cannot complete the merge process ourselves, but we can escalate your ticket to the appropriate party and will notify you once it’s been completed.
- If you are prompted to Associate your SSO account with a CITI Program account, select, “I already have a CITI Program account”. You will then be able to enter your login information for your alternate CITI account. For step by step instructions on this process, see the Associate your SSO with a CITI Program Account heading in the article instructions above.
Once an application for research has been submitted, iRIS checks the CITI website to confirm that the required modules have been completed. You may see the following error message in iRIS if there is a problem with your CITI training validation.
“Training validation failed”
You may also receive an email with the following message:
“Training failed for users on your study. You will need to address these issues and resubmit the form.”
There are three potential causes for this training validation error. See the menus below for instructions on resolving each of the three possibilities.
For your application to be validated, it must be submitted using your GCU email. If you created a CITI account prior to January 2021, you may have created a username to log into your CITI account that is different than your GCU email. As long as the GCU email address is associated with your account however, it will validate your application.
If the email address you provided when registering for your CITI account is not your GCU email, you can update it with the following steps:
- Log into CITI at citiprogram.org
- In the upper right corner, click the down-arrow icon next to your name. Then select Profiles.
- Scroll down and locate Institutional Profiles. Find Grand Canyon University and select Edit Profile.
- Update your Institutional email address to match your GCU email ([email protected]), and then click Update. After updating the email, allow 6-12 hours for CITI and iRIS to register the updated email.
Once you have waited 6-12 hours, enter iRIS and retract the application. To retract the application:
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Click on My Studies.
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Click on the Pencil and Pad icon to open your application.
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Click on Retract Submission.
Once the application has been retracted, resubmit the application and the training validation will be cleared.
If you are receiving the training validation error message, confirm that you have passed all of the modules required for training.
For CDS learners, ensure that you have completed both of the following modules in CITI as well as all other investigators included on the application:
- RCR FOR SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE DOCTORAL LEARNERS
- Social Behavioral Research Students / Social Behavioral Research Faculty
If you or any of the other investigators in your application have not passed these modules, you will need to retract the application and complete these modules.
To retract the application:
- Click on My Studies.
- Click on the Pencil and Pad icon to open your application.
- Click on Retract Submission.
After retracting, you can resubmit the application and the training validation will be cleared.
If you are receiving the training validation error message, check to ensure that you did not accidentally add your chair as a co-investigator on your iRIS application. If your chair is listed as a co-investigator, iRIS thinks they need to complete CITI Training too.
- Log into iRIS and select My Studies.
- Click the pen and pad icon below to Open your study.
- The Submission page will open. From here you can see if there are any errors. If there is a CITI Training validation error, click the magnifying glass icon within the error box.
- The Submission Tracking page will open. Click the plus sign next to the most recent flagged status event. A description of the error will appear. Look at the names next to “Personnel without valid IRB Initial Submission trainings”. Confirm if the names listed here are all co-investigators. If you’ve added your chair’s name here as well, you will need to remove it.
- Before your chair’s name can be removed, you will first need to retract the study. Navigate to the Submissions page to click the Retract Submission button.
- Select the Study Management tab and click Key Personnel.
- The “Assign key personnel (KSP) access to the study” page will open. Review the names listed under the Additional Investigators section. If the chair’s name is listed here, check the box next to the name and click Remove.
- Add the chair’s name into Research Support Staff section instead. To do this, click the Add User button to the right of Research Support Staff.
- Look up the chair and click the green checkmark next to their name.
- Select Chair from the dropdown menu. Then click Save Access to the Study.
- Navigate back to the Submissions page and click Resend Submission.
