What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

10 April 2013

I is for IRB

It turns out "IRB" can stand for a lot of things, none of which mean anything to me, but this one will probably have a lot of power over my life for the foreseeable future: IRB = Institutional Review Board. They're the group at a university that reviews all research proposals to be sure the researcher has adequate protections in place for the university, the research participants, and the researcher herself.

"Approved" stamp required before
continuing. From bigevil600 on
stock.xchng.
This semester I had to fill out an IRB proposal for the first time, for my research class. Since my research is solely for a class project and is under the direction of my prof, it is exempt from IRB review. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the big one is that no class research could ever get done if students had to wait for the IRB to review their proposals and conduct the project in the span of a single semester.

My research--about cycling with children-- is still in progress. Wanna join in? If you're a parent and you live in Texas, you are eligible to take the survey (it's geared more toward those who have children living at home, although parents of grown children are welcome to take it) here.

3 comments:

Karen M. Peterson said...

That sounds like a good research project. Good luck with it!

Editor and Publisher Shelly Burke said...

That sounds like a fun project--good luck! I enjoyed checking you out on as part of the A to Z Challenge!

J E Fritz said...

Cool! Research means you're a real grad student :). Sorry I can't help. No Texas or children. I hope you get the info you need.