AI/Skills/isef-compliance-walker
The rules maze, walked once, correctly.
ISEF's compliance paperwork gates a project before a single experiment runs — the wrong form, or the right form filed too late, can disqualify good work. This skill asks a short structured intake and emits the exact forms, the correct review body, and the right timing, grounded in the official rules book.
isef-compliance-walker asks a structured intake — does the project involve humans, animals, tissue, hazardous agents, field work, restricted research? — classifies the project into ISEF's substrate clusters, and emits the precise forms it requires (Form 1, 1A, 1B, 1C, 2, 3, 4, the 5-series, 6A/6B, 7, informed-consent samples, BSL checklists, a field-safety plan). Crucially it gets the timing right — which approvals must land before experimentation and which after — and names the correct review body: SRC, IRB, IACUC, IBC, or the D&S committee. It surfaces the ISEF 2026 Generative-AI-Use matrix when a project uses AI.
In
- Answers to a structured intake (humans? animals? tissue? hazards? field? RRI?)
- A short description of the project and its methods
- Optional language flag (EN / 中文 / both)
Out
- A personalized form checklist with the exact ISEF forms required
- The correct review body for each (SRC / IRB / IACUC / IBC / D&S)
- Pre- vs post-experimentation timing and required signatures
- The Generative-AI-Use matrix when relevant
An intake becomes a form checklist
A student answers the intake for a project that surveys human subjects. The skill returns the required forms, the review body, and — the part students most often get wrong — the order they must happen in. The example is illustrative.
Project: an anonymous questionnaire measuring sleep habits and
test anxiety among high-school students.
Humans? Yes — survey of minors, anonymous.
Animals / tissue? No.
Hazardous agents? No.
Field work? No.
Uses AI? Yes — to cluster the free-text responses.- Form 1B · Approval before experimentation. Human-participants project — must be reviewed and signed off before any survey is distributed.
- Human Participants Form (1C) + informed-consent / assent samples. Minors surveyed → parental consent plus participant assent; a sample template is emitted.
- Review body: IRB. This project needs Institutional Review Board approval, not just SRC — the intake flags which and why.
- Generative-AI-Use matrix. Because AI clusters the responses, the 2026 matrix entry for "AI as an analysis tool" is surfaced, with the disclosure the abstract must carry.
- Form 1, 1A, Research Plan. The always-required base set, with the pre-experimentation deadline called out.
Form numbers and routing shown here are illustrative of the skill's output shape; the live skill states the current-year rules and tells the student to confirm against the official ISEF rules book.