IRB for Dummies

No joke, this is a process that NO ONE likes to fool with. However, I was lucky in that I had the hardest time EVER ON RECORD getting an IRB done as a doctoral student at UT Austin. Let me explain...in order to do research, you have to get permission to collect data and publish that data. Well, when you are doing research on students (gasp - MINORS!), you have to get a TON of permission and go through hundreds of hoops with school districts, the university you are working with, parents, guardians...consent forms in English and Spanish, research protocols carefully written and include every detail... it's a huge deal. It took me seven months, yes SEVEN months to get this done through Austin Independent School district. In the meantime, I waited and waited and could not do a thing as far as research was concerned until it was - FINALLY - approved. It was hellacious.

So, when a colleague (biologist) walked in yesterday and asked if I knew anything about IRB's, I was torn...do I say "yes" and take on this monster? Or reply., "never heard of it" and let him find another dummy? I said "yes"... very, very hesitantly. This reply, it turns out, got me on a grant proposal of over a million bucks if I wrote the IRB and ran it through the hoops:



Today, I started. It turns out since I had the world's worst school district to deal with in Austin (as they have the United States' largest research university in their backyard!), this one was, by comparison, a piece of cake. Yes, much simpler and much shorter. Oh happy day! I think it will be done tomorrow and we can collect some data next month!!!!!! Yes sir, it does pay to do your homework and learn. I am very thankful!