Frequently asked questions

Submission is open only to ATU members who hold an institutional email ending in @atu.edu.iq. The registration system automatically rejects any other domain.

After sign-up, a verification link is sent to your @atu.edu.iq inbox. The account activates only once you click that link. Check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive within a few minutes.

Yes. On first login you complete your profile (name, department, rank, ATU ID) and pass a short research-ethics training acknowledgment before the new-application button unlocks.

Choose “Human (IRB)” if your study involves human participants or their data, and “Animal (IACUC)” if it uses laboratory animals. The form branches automatically to request the right documents for each track.

The full protocol, investigator CVs, instruments/questionnaires, consent forms (human) or animal procedures, and a signed PI declaration. The system checks completeness before accepting the submission.

The system assigns a unique number at submission — e.g. REC-IRB-2026-0001 for human or REC-IACUC-2026-0001 for animal — timestamps it, and shows it on your dashboard and in all correspondence.

Reviewers recommend one of: approve, minor revision, major revision, or reject. The panel then votes with its quorum. Revisions return the application to your dashboard for a resubmission cycle, with full version history preserved.

No animal protocol can be approved without the veterinarian present and voting; they safeguard animal health, anesthesia, analgesia, and humane endpoints. Likewise, human protocols require the layperson's input.

All official mail comes from no-reply@rec-pck.org, with rec.karbala@atu.edu.iq as the monitored reply-to for queries. Official mail is never sent from individual user mailboxes, to preserve the audit trail.

Yes. The site enforces HTTPS, uploads are stored in access-controlled buckets, and an immutable audit log records every action — who did what, and when.

Reviewers see only their assigned applications and cannot see each other's identities (blinded review) until the decision. Any member with a conflict of interest must recuse themselves.