01The form belongs to the board, so it is answered in the board's language
Boards word their applications differently and ask for very nearly the same things. A reviewer works through fields, and a field answered from the shape of your dissertation rather than the shape of the question is what generates most returns. Recruitment buried inside a paragraph of methodology. Risk described as minimal without saying minimal compared with what. Storage described as secure without naming where.
So the protocol is drafted into your board's actual template, field by field, with the consent document, the recruitment wording and the instruments built at the same time rather than afterwards. Documents produced separately contradict each other in small ways, and a reviewer who finds two different time commitments in two attachments will raise both.
02Some conditions cost a week, others reset your queue
A first submission rarely clears outright, and the letter arriving afterwards sets conditions rather than passing judgment. What decides whether approval lands in a fortnight or in three months is which kind of condition you were handed, and whether the reply is built to close them all in one round.
The reply is a document in its own right: each numbered condition restated, the change made, the file and page where it now lives, and the revised protocol attached with changes visible. A reviewer who can find their own condition closed in one line need not open the protocol at all, which is exactly the outcome worth engineering.
- Administrative: a page number, a signature, a missing attachment, closed the same day
- Wording: consent language rephrased, usually settled without touching the study at all
- Clarification: the reviewer wants a sentence added, not a change to the design
- Substantive: population, recruitment or risk altered, which can trigger a fuller review
- Anything shifting the review category: assume the timetable restarts and plan against that
03What holds packets up is rarely the science
Three attachments account for a large share of delays and none of them is intellectual work. Confirmation that your CITI training is current rather than lapsed. Written permission from whoever owns the instrument you intend to use, where it is not freely available. And a letter from the site agreeing to let you recruit there, signed by somebody with authority to give it.
All three consume other people's time, so they start in parallel with the drafting instead of after it. The same logic governs the submission date. Expedited review moves on its own schedule while anything needing the convened board waits for a meeting, so filing is planned backward from your defense rather than forward from whenever the protocol happens to be finished. The wider objective sits under IRB clearance and runs beside the document itself.
Send what exists
The board's form, your draft protocol if there is one, and any letter already received. Two hours to a scope and figure, free.
Category, then packet
The review route is settled first because it sets the timetable, then protocol, consent and instruments are built together.
Conditions closed in one round
Each numbered item is answered where the reviewer raised it, with revised documents attached and the changes made visible.
FAQQuestions to control
Can approval be promised?
No. A board decides, and any service promising that outcome is selling something it does not own. What is offered instead is a submission giving a reviewer nothing to ask about: the correct review category, a complete packet, documents that agree with one another, and a reply that closes conditions in one round rather than three.
Which review route will my study take?
Studies posing no risk beyond ordinary daily life, in ordinary settings, are often eligible for an exempt determination. Low-risk work that misses that bar usually goes to expedited review by one or two members. Anything past that waits for a convened meeting. The route is assessed before drafting, because it sets your calendar more than the writing does.
Can only the revision letter be answered?
Yes, and it is a frequent request. Send the letter, the submitted protocol and every attachment as filed. Conditions are sorted by what each one actually requires, documents are revised, and a response memo maps every numbered item to its change and location. Nothing about the original submission gets redone unless a condition demands it.
My project is quality improvement rather than research.
Then the first question is whether your institution treats it as research at all, and that determination belongs to the board rather than to you or to us. Many programs want it in writing even when the answer is no, because a journal or a committee asks for it later. Obtaining that early is cheap; obtaining it retrospectively is not.
Who actually files the submission?
You do. It goes from your account, in your name, because you are the investigator and the board corresponds with you. Everything up to that point is prepared, checked and assembled here, including the covering description and the attachment list, so the filing itself takes a few minutes rather than an evening of assembly.
