While the IRB reviews request for research involving human subjects, the Internal Research Review Board (IRRB) reviews requests to conduct research with APUS students, faculty, and staff. Researchers interested in conducting research at APUS must submit a “Request to Conduct Research” application. This application can be obtained by emailing [email protected] and should be submitted by the principal investigator. If the proposed research is being done as part of a dissertation or advanced course work, the dissertation chair or lead faculty member must sign the form.
Please note: The application process may take up to one month from the time the application is received until a decision has been made.
APUS receives many applications each year to conduct research with our students, faculty, and staff. As such, not all requests can be accommodated. The following criteria will be used by the Internal Research Review Board to review applications.
- Overall strength of proposal/validity of research: Research design must be strong and all instruments (e.g. surveys, tests, forms for data collection, etc.) must be included with the application.
- Ethical soundness: All research involving the APUS community must be ethically sound and carry minimal risk to the community.
- Cost/benefit to APUS community: Research conducted with the APUS community should have a direct benefit to the community or to the academy at large.
- Relationship of the principal investigator (PI) to APUS: Research conducted by PIs who are already part of the APUS community or connected to it may be given priority.
- Relevance: APUS may prioritize those projects that are relevant to its mission.
- Survey Fatigue: Number and type of already approved assessments and/or research projects in play for a particular population or on a given topic or research question.
- Organizational impact: Potential impact on APUS of results of survey being conducted or published.
- Shareholder and insider information impact: If information to be researched (subject area, sample and/or sample size) is considered proprietary, confidential or material insider information, this factor alone can veto any research project proposal.