purdueglobalirb

Home · Newsletter

Purdue Global IRB approval, step by step: the sequence before any data is collected

Purdue Global's IRB publishes its process as a numbered sequence, and the first step is not a form — it is a decision about which of three submission pathways the project belongs on. Human Research Determination, exempt, expedited: each pathway pulls its own worksheet, its own protocol form and its own participant document, so a wrong reading at step one is not a line to correct later, it is a file to redraw. Nothing reaches the board until accepted ethics training is attached and a supervisor has signed. Nothing is collected until the approval exists in writing.

Victoria Halloran, PhD · 2026-08-23

Short answer

Purdue Global's Investigator Guide runs five steps: confirm the pathway with a determination worksheet, complete accepted ethics training, complete the matching protocol form, assemble the supporting documents, then submit through the IRB application form. Data begins only after written approval.

What is the actual sequence at Purdue Global?

Purdue University Global — the online university built for working adults, and a separate institution from Purdue University in West Lafayette — runs its board through the Office of the Academic Success Center's IRB pages. The Investigator Guide there lays the process out in five numbered steps, and the numbering is not decorative. Each step produces the input the next step consumes, which is why the order cannot be rearranged for convenience.

The published sequence, and what each step hands to the next
StepWhat it asksWhat it produces
One — self-assessmentWhich of the three pathways does this project belong on?A completed determination worksheet, and with it the form set for every later step
Two — training videosOrientation material the guide lists as forthcomingCurrently a placeholder on the published page
Three — ethics trainingIs the human-subjects training the board accepts on file?A certificate that goes into the submission as an attachment
Four — protocol sheetDoes the protocol form for this pathway read as one study?The protocol, plus the participant-facing document the pathway requires
Five — submissionIs the packet complete, and who signs first?The application, routed for supervisory approval, then to the reviewers

Why is the pathway decision the first step and not the last?

Because the pathway is the datum every later document measures from. The Investigator Guide names three submission pathways — Human Research Determination, Exempt Research, and Expedited Research — and gives each one its own self-assessment worksheet: IRB-310 for the determination question, IRB-312 for exemption, IRB-313 for expedited review. Those worksheets are not paperwork about paperwork. They are the criteria the board itself applies, published in advance so that the reading you do at your desk is the reading the reviewer will do later.

The consequence is structural. Pick the Human Research Determination pathway and the protocol form is IRB-503b, and there is no consent template in the set at all, because the pathway exists to establish that an activity is not research. Pick exemption and you are on IRB-503c with the exempt research information sheet, IRB-502b. Pick expedited and you are on IRB-503a with the expedited informed consent template, IRB-502a. Three different files. A project that starts down one pathway and turns out to belong on another does not get patched; it gets drawn again. That is the cheapest possible argument for spending real attention on step one, and we go into the criteria themselves in exempt, expedited or full board at Purdue Global.

What ethics training does the board accept?

Purdue Global states that its IRB follows the terms of its Federalwide Assurance with the Office for Human Research Protections, and that compliance with the training standard is met by completing one of three options. The first is the CITI Program's basic course in social, humanistic and behavioral research, registering through CITI with Purdue Global selected as the affiliated institution and a Purdue Global email address. The second is the Protecting Human Research Participants computer-based training. The third is a comparable current certificate from another institution — which the guide will accept only if it is not more than seven years old.

Here is a detail worth measuring rather than assuming. Purdue Global has published its IRB guidance across more than one surface, and on the training question those surfaces do not read identically. The older IRB site states that a certificate in a Responsible Conduct of Research course will not be accepted in place of the basic social and behavioral course. The current Investigator Guide lists the basic Group 2 course and a social and behavioral responsible conduct of research course together as what to complete. That is the same dimension read two ways across two documents — exactly the kind of drift that produces a return when it happens inside your file, and exactly the kind of thing to settle by writing to the IRB office rather than by choosing whichever page you found first. Where this article and the university's current handbook or IRB portal differ, the university governs.

What does the protocol sheet step actually require?

It requires you to complete the protocol form for your pathway, and the guide is specific about a small mechanical thing that trips people: the templates carry instructional text in red, and that text is meant to be deleted and replaced with study-specific content in black. A protocol that arrives with the instructions still in it tells the reviewer the form was filled rather than drawn.

Beyond the protocol itself, the submission guidelines enumerate what a complete packet carries: a research plan summary; who the participants are and what your relationship to them is; a methodology section that answers where the data lives, who can open it, how long it is held and whether anything identifiable is collected; a recruitment plan and the materials themselves; written site permission on letterhead, signed by an official; the informed consent document; an assent form where minors are involved; and the training certificate. We take that list apart document by document in the Purdue Global IRB application checklist.

Who signs before the board sees anything?

Your supervisor. Purdue Global's guidance is explicit that a submission first routes to the thesis advisor, consultant or instructor, or supervisor for approval, and only once that approval is secured do the IRB reviewers read the proposal. Two things follow. The first is that an incomplete packet costs you two queues, not one. The second is that the person signing is reading your study against what they already approved — the proposal, the project plan, the method chapter — which makes any drift between those documents and the application visible before the board ever opens the file.

What can the board send back?

Purdue Global describes three possible responses to a submitted proposal: the reviewers determine the protocol is exempt and approve it; they require additional information or modifications and return specific recommendations that must be addressed before the proposal is read again; or they determine that the proposal requires full review. Note what that third outcome is and is not. Full review is not a pathway you select at step one — the guide offers you three, and none of them is the convened board. It is a destination the study is sent to when the reviewers read a design that does not sit inside the exempt or expedited criteria.

A return in the middle category is rarely a verdict on the quality of the work. It is almost always a tolerance failure: one dimension of the study — the sample, the instrument, the site, the procedure, the duration of a participant's involvement — reading one way in the protocol and another way in the consent, the recruitment material or the site letter. The reviewer is not required to decide which reading is correct. The reviewer is required to notice that two exist.

When may data begin to exist?

When the approval does. Purdue Global's program catalogs put it as a progression requirement rather than a suggestion: the applied doctoral project sequences state that ethics training must be completed and Purdue Global IRB approval obtained before data collection for the project starts. The federal frame behind that is 45 CFR 46, under which research involving human subjects is reviewed and approved before it is conducted, not audited afterwards.

This is the one dimension in the whole file with no tolerance at all. Material gathered before the approval exists cannot be admitted retroactively, because approval does not reach backwards, and no amendment repairs it. The same edge governs change after approval: a new site, a reworded recruitment message, a revised instrument goes through the post-approval request the guide links before it runs, not after. Holding that edge costs patience and nothing else, which makes it the cheapest requirement on the entire sheet.

Where do Purdue Global files most often stall?

  1. At the pathway. A project claimed as a determination whose design contains a comparison, a validated instrument or an intent to produce findings that travel beyond the site.
  2. At the certificate. The wrong course completed, or the right one completed by only one member of the study team.
  3. At the site letter. Warm support rather than written permission that names the actual access being granted, or a letter arriving from a personal address.
  4. At the participant document. An exempt information sheet used where the expedited consent template belongs, or a consent version that does not match the protocol it is stapled to.
  5. At the data section. Storage, access, retention and destruction described in adjectives rather than named systems, named roles and named endpoints.

None of these are judgments about your study. They are properties of the drawing of it, and all of them are measurable before submission. The questions page answers what candidates most often ask before sending anything over.

What to do next

Wherever the work sits right now — an approved proposal, a half-built packet, a return letter on the desk — the first measure costs nothing. Send it through the intake sheet. We read it against Purdue Global's published requirements and write back with a findings list: the pathway the design actually belongs on, the dimensions that disagree between your documents, and the word clean wherever nothing is needed. Should you want the plate carried rather than measured, this practice takes the whole sequence off your desk — category, documents, filing, and each answer the reviewers ask for afterwards. What never changes hands is the research itself: your question, your data, your conclusions. What nobody can promise is the outcome, which belongs to the board alone. How it works describes the three moves in full.

Sources

Give us the entire IRB process. Keep the study.

The free application review is where it starts. From there we carry everything — the determination and the plan, every document drawn to the same dimensions, the submission itself, and every reply to the board until the approval letter exists. The study, the data and the findings remain yours; the board's decision is its own.

Request the free application review Send whatever exists — drafts count.
Has the board measured your file yet?