IRB Review

Revised October 24, 2007

The protocol for the Faculty and Student Questionnaires has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Research Board (IRB) at the National Research Council. The protocol and the approval letter can be accessed by clicking on the items below. The introductory material for each of the questionnaires describes the procedures for confidentiality and clearly states that completion or partial completion of the survey is voluntary. The introductory text for each questionnaire can also be accessed in the following list. As of 10/23/2006 the faculty and student questionnaires are final and can be found in the questionnaires section of this web site.

Faculty and Student Questionnaire Protocol

NRC Approval of the Protocol

Introduction to Student Questionnaire

Initial Letter to Students

Follow up Letter to Students

Introduction to Faculty Questionnaire

Initial Letter to Faculty

Follow up letter to Faculty

Survey of Program Quality Protocol

NRC Approval of the Program Quality Protocol

NRC Institutional Review Board Approval (7/20/07)

The NRC has also received IRB approval for the wording that will be used to ensure confidentiality when collecting gender, citizenship, and race/ethnicity information from the institutions for program faculty.

Amendment Protocol for Program Faculty Data

NRC Approval for Amendment Protocol

The NRC has received final IRB approval for the content of the Program, Faculty, and Student Questionnaires. IRB approval has also been granted for a revision of the protocol to include the collection of faculty and student addresses and telephone numbers from the institution. This information will be used to contact faculty and students in relation to questionnaire responses only, and will not be used to collect questionnaire data. The request for a change in protocol can be found at Amended Questionnaire Protocol.

The NRC has also received IRB approval for a change in the protocol for the Faculty Questionnaire. Faculty members were originally asked to complete and make a final submission of their questionnaire, but some faculty members requested that the questionnaire be reopened so they could change or add information. To accommodate these requests MPR opened all questionnaires, this change in protocol has been approved by the NRC IRB.

The following information may be needed for IRB review are some institutions.

The registration number of the National Academies’ IRB is IRB00000281
The registration number for Federal Wide Assurance is FWA00003198

This study is supported by:

National Science Foundation, Award # NSF-7647
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Award # SLON-5956
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Award # AMEL- 5804