Dr. Lamar Reams, Interim Associate Dean in the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies, sent the following revisions today to ODU’s COVID-adjusted research protocols:
Thank you all for your hard work and cooperation with all of the restrictions that have been in place throughout the Covid pandemic. Although Covid’s impact will be felt for years to come, I hope this information brings you joy and sparks your return to research!
- Capacity restrictions for indoor research spaces are lifted.
- Physical distancing restrictions are lifted for indoor research spaces where all research team members are fully vaccinated. Unvaccinated research team members must still follow physical distancing guidelines or wear a mask when needing to work in close proximity with others.
- Physical distancing restrictions for outdoor research activities are lifted for fully vaccinated researchers. Unvaccinated research team members should maintain physical distancing or wear a mask when needing to work in close proximity with others.
- COVID-related cleaning protocols for research spaces are no longer required.
- Faculty and students who are fully vaccinated may share transportation for travel to off-campus research sites.
- Research activities may be planned without regard to limiting duration of data collection.
- Travel may resume for non-critical research activities (e.g. conference attendance).
- All in-person human subjects research may resume, pending IRB or college human subjects review committee approval of the research protocol.
- Research Restart applications are no longer required.
Please note that the following is still in effect:
Masking – State and University policy still requires masks to be worn by unvaccinated individuals when physical distancing cannot be maintained. Faculty, staff, and students engaged in research should be reminded of this continued requirement. Additionally, human subjects researchers should inform research participants of this requirement when recruiting participants for research activities.
Activity logs – We still ask research labs to maintain activity logs to track when personnel enter and leave research spaces in case contact tracing is necessary.
We’re back!