CITI training. Topic approval. Scientific merit. Then the IRB. At Capella the order is fixed — nothing collects a single interview until the gate ahead of it clears, and a returned application waits out a full review pass before it moves again.
We are independent consultants who handle the entire Capella IRB process — the determination, every document, the submission, and every reply to the board — end to end, every week.
Independent of Capella University. We run the whole IRB process for you; the research itself stays yours, and the board's decision is always its own.
One application, five rows, three returns — and every one of them was visible before it was filed. This is the file we see most, drawn from the ones we carry every week.
None of these are research problems. They are file problems — foreseeable, and preventable before submission. That is the whole case for reading the file before the board does.
Capella's sequence runs one way: human-subjects training, topic approval, the research plan through Scientific Merit Review, then the IRB. Site permission is the tributary almost everyone starts too late — it joins the route at the IRB gate, but the letters take longest to obtain. Select a gate to see what clears it.
The board reads your application against the research plan Scientific Merit Review already approved. Any drift between the two — sample, sites, instruments, recruitment — is the single most common reason a file comes back. The application must also carry consent documents, recruitment materials, site permission letters and your CITI certificates, version-matched to the protocol.
Holds the route until: the file and the approved plan say exactly the same thing.
Collecting data before approval isn't a shortcut — it's a compliance violation that can disqualify everything gathered. The route only ever moves forward one way.
The costliest early mistake is misreading what your project is. A quality-improvement project framed as research — or the reverse — sets you on the wrong path for months. Five questions, an honest reading.
The board rarely rejects — it returns. Each return waits out another review pass. These are the five returns we see most across the Capella files we prepare, and what each one throws you back to.
Sample size, sites or instruments drifted after Scientific Merit Review signed off.
The fix: reconcile every number and instrument name against the stamped plan — or amend the plan first.
Throws you back to Gate 3.
Wrong version attached, missing required elements, or written past the reading level of the people signing it.
The fix: one consent version, stamped to the protocol, every required element present.
Revise and resubmit.
No letter, the wrong signatory, or a letter that never names the data you'll actually touch.
The fix: letterhead, an authorised signatory, and the data named. Organisations sign slowly — start upstream.
Stalled at Gate 4 until it arrives.
QI submitted as human-subjects research, or research submitted as QI. The board re-routes it.
The fix: run the determination honestly before you file, and claim the path the project is actually on.
The longest bounce of all.
Where identifiers live, who holds the key, and when it's all destroyed — answered in a sentence.
The fix: name the storage, the access list, the de-identification step and the destruction date.
Revise and resubmit.
None of these are research problems. They're file problems — and file problems are entirely preventable before submission. Which is why we build the whole file, not just read it.
An IRB application is never one form. It's a dossier, and the board reads it as one document — every piece version-matched to every other.
The whole process, in three moves — because the file, like the route, only works in sequence.
We read your project the way the board will, settle which review path it is on, and map every document it needs — before a word is drafted. The same mismatch check the reviewers run, run first.
The application, the consent forms, recruitment materials, instruments aligned to the approved plan, the data-security plan, site permission letters drafted for signature — one file that says one thing, everywhere.
We file it. When the board writes back, so do we — revision responses, amendments, continuing review, point by point, document by document — until the approval letter is in your hands.
What stays yours: the research. The project, the data and the findings are yours. Everything the board touches is ours to handle — and we handle it for Capella professionals every week, across DNP quality-improvement projects, MSN capstones and doctoral research.
Three consultants, one file. Every Capella application that comes through the practice is read by a person who has prepared hundreds of them, and the same three hands carry it from the determination to the approval letter.
Lead IRB consultant. Determinations and the plan.
Elise reads every new project the way Capella's board will, settles which review path it is on, and maps the file before a word is drafted. She has carried Capella IRB applications from the first determination to the approval letter for as long as the practice has taken them.
Consent, instruments, data-security plans.
Harriet builds the documents the board reads most closely: the consent forms, the instruments and interview guides, and the data-security plan, each version-matched to the stamped plan. When a return letter cites consent language or data handling, her revision response is the reply.
Site permission letters, submissions, board correspondence.
Margaret drafts the site permission letters for signature, follows up with the signatories, and files the application when every piece is in. From then on the board's correspondence comes to her desk, and every reply goes back point by point until approval.
Two more consultants staff the live chat on this page, so a question reaches a person who has read a Capella file that week.
Four of the professionals whose Capella files we have handled, in their own words. Names shortened at their request.
My application had come back twice before I found the desk. Elise read the return letter line by line, matched the consent to the protocol, and the next letter from the board was the approval. I wish I had sent it in before the first submission.
I had a site permission letter signed by the wrong person and did not know it. They caught it in the free review, drafted the replacement on the right letterhead, and told me exactly who had to sign. The board never had a reason to write back about it.
I was certain my project was research. The determination read it as quality improvement, the file was built for that path, and it went through without being re-routed. That one reading saved me a whole review cycle.
The board wrote back with seven points and I forwarded the letter. Margaret answered every one, document by document, and I signed the revision response without rewriting a thing. Approval followed on the resubmission.
4.9 / 5 across the professionals we have served since 2006. The files described above were all read, built and answered by the desk on this page.
Every package is quoted after the free review, so the price follows the file rather than a menu.
For a project that is not yet filed and needs its path settled.
Quoted in writing once the free review is done.One fixed fee; nothing billed by the hour.
For a project ready to be filed, built so it says one thing everywhere.
Quoted in writing once the free review is done.One fixed fee; nothing billed by the hour.
The whole process, from the determination to the approval letter in your hands.
Most chosenQuoted in writing once the free review is done.One fixed fee; nothing billed by the hour.
The nine questions the desk is asked most, each answered in a sentence or two — the longer reading sits beneath.
Yes — at minimum a determination. Most quality-improvement work is read as not-human-subjects research, but Capella's board makes that call, and you file to obtain it.
Claiming the category yourself is the longest bounce in the ledger above: quality improvement filed as research, or the reverse, is re-routed and waits out another review pass.
Fourth, and last. Capella's route runs CITI training, then topic approval, then Scientific Merit Review, then the IRB — and data collection begins only after the board's approval.
The order is not a formality. The IRB reads your application against the plan Scientific Merit Review stamped, so the board's reference document is written one gate earlier.
No. Nothing may be collected before the board approves — not a pilot interview, not an early survey — and anything gathered before approval can be invalidated.
Capella's current handbook and IRB portal carry the detail; the principle is the route itself — the approval letter opens data collection, and nothing else does.
Yes — current CITI certification in the modules that match your study, as named in Capella's current handbook or IRB portal. An expired certificate quietly invalidates an otherwise clean file.
Check the expiry dates before a word is drafted. It is the one row the board can fail without reading the protocol.
Written permission from the organisation where you will collect data — on its letterhead, signed by someone authorised to give it, naming the data you will touch. Organisations sign slowly, so files stall at the IRB gate waiting for the letter.
Request it upstream, at topic approval or earlier. We draft the letter for the signatory, so the only thing the organisation has to do is sign.
Risk and population decide it. Minimal-risk studies in defined categories may qualify as exempt or expedited; studies that record identifiers or involve vulnerable populations go to the full board.
The category is claimed in the file and the board confirms or re-routes it. The determination above gives you an honest first reading — and tells you when you don't need us.
Returned, not rejected. You answer the board's points one by one, resubmit the revised documents, and the file waits out another review pass before it moves again.
Most returns are file problems, not research problems — version drift, a consent mismatch, a missing letter — and a revision response answers them document by document.
We handle the entire IRB process end to end — the determination, every document, the submission and every reply until approval. The study, the data and the findings stay yours, and the board's decision is always its own.
We do not conduct the research, author findings or represent the university. Everything the board touches is ours to carry.
It is quoted in writing after the free application review — one fixed fee, nothing billed by the hour — across three packages: Determination & Plan, The Complete File, and Full Handover, the premium.
The free review costs nothing and commits you to nothing; the quote follows the file, not a menu.
A question that isn't here is exactly what the free review is for — put it in the form, or .
A consultation costs you nothing and reads your file the way a reviewer will — where it stands on the route, what it's missing, and what would come back. Then, if you want, we take the entire process from there — every document, the submission, every reply — until approval.
Independent consultants · every week, Capella files · your research stays yours
One offer per project, applied to the fixed fee quoted after the review. Close this and nothing changes.