the order of review
Nine moves, in the order a Herzing IRB file actually makes them.
A Herzing IRB file does not drift toward a decision; it makes nine discrete moves, and every one of them is somebody's named act. Two of those moves belong to the board and are outside anyone else's reach. The other seven happen at your desk, before the file is ever sent — which is why the order below is worth knowing before the first form is opened rather than after the first reply arrives.
Helen Marsh, PhD·Filed 23 August 2026·Updated 23 August 2026
Pick the application Herzing routes your programme to, satisfy the checklist printed on its first page, collect every signature the form names, send it to the IRB Chair ahead of a dated meeting, and wait for the written notice. Nothing begins before that notice.
Which application does Herzing put in front of you?
Herzing settles this before you write a word of the file, and it settles it by programme rather than by topic. The university's own Getting Started letter, signed by the IRB Chair, sends doctoral candidates in the DNE and DNP programmes to the Healthcare Improvement or Innovation Project Application, and sends everyone else — including a master's-level capstone with a data component — to the Research Protocol Application. Both are emailed to the IRB Chair at the address published on the university's IRB page.
That single fork governs everything downstream. The two forms ask for different things, carry different checklists, and require different signatures, so a file assembled against the wrong one is not merely mislabelled — it is missing documents it was never asked to gather. Confirm the routing against Herzing's current IRB handbook or portal before you open either form, because programme names and routings are exactly the sort of thing an edition change moves.
What both forms share is the thing most people skip. Each opens with a checklist, on page one, before any question is asked. That checklist is not a courtesy summary of the form; it is the manifest of the file, and it names attachments the form itself never mentions again.
What order does the file actually move in?
Nine moves, in sequence. The column that matters most is the last one, because it separates the moves you control from the two you do not.
| # | The move | Whose act | What it costs to get wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Identify the application your programme is routed to | Yours | A file built against the wrong manifest |
| 2 | Read the checklist printed on that form's first page | Yours | Attachments nobody told you to gather |
| 3 | Answer the form's numbered steps from a settled plan | Yours | Answers that contradict each other |
| 4 | Attach every item the checklist names | Yours | An incomplete file, judged as such |
| 5 | Collect every signature the form prints a line for | Yours, and your faculty's | An unsigned file is not yet a filing |
| 6 | Send it to the IRB Chair before the published materials-due date | Yours | The file waits for the next dated meeting |
| 7 | Triage into exempt, expedited or full board | The IRB Chair's | Nothing — this one is not yours to make |
| 8 | Review, and the action taken on the protocol | The board's, or a designated reviewer's | Nothing — the decision is the board's own |
| 9 | Written notice of the outcome, or of what is still needed | The board's, to you in writing | Beginning anything before it arrives |
Who decides whether a convened board ever reads your file?
Not you, and not the form. Herzing's IRB Bylaws hand that judgement to one person: among the Chair's listed duties is reviewing all incoming applications to determine whether they are exempt, eligible for expedited review, or require full IRB review. The application can argue for a path — and a well-argued file makes the Chair's read quick — but it cannot select one.
Where the path is expedited, the Bylaws let the Chair, or a designated experienced member, review and approve protocols that involve no more than minimal risk, or that carry only minor changes to something already approved. The federal rule adds a limit worth knowing: a reviewer working under an expedited procedure may exercise the authorities of the board but may not disapprove the research. A disapproval can only come out of the non-expedited procedure. So the worst outcome available to an expedited read is a referral upward, never a refusal.
Where the path is full board, the Bylaws set the room: business requires a quorum of a majority of members plus one, including at least one nonscientist, and actions carry by majority vote of those present. A vote that is not unanimous is recorded by roll call in the minutes, member by member. The four paths, and the facts about a design that point at one rather than another, are read on their own in the four landings a Herzing file can reach.
What does the board's calendar have to do with completeness?
Everything, and this is the part that catches careful people. Herzing publishes a dated IRB calendar: a column of meeting dates, and beside each one its own materials-due date. The Statement of Principles is blunt about what the deadline does — non-exempt applications that arrive after it are reviewed at the next scheduled meeting. The Bylaws add that the board holds its stated meetings during the second week of each eight-week term, with the IRB Administrator announcing dates and submission deadlines to the university community.
Read those two facts together and the argument this desk keeps making stops being a slogan. A file is placed on a dated agenda. What comes back from that agenda is either a reading of your project or a notice that the file was not yet reviewable — and the second outcome consumes the same slot as the first. That is the whole case for building the folder complete before it is sent, and it is made at length in why the board judges completeness before quality. How long any single pass takes is the board's own business, and no one outside the board should tell you.
When may the project begin?
When the written notice says so, and not before. The Bylaws state the rule plainly in their section on exempt research: research may not begin until written approval is granted by the IRB Chair. Both application forms repeat the same shape of promise — after submission you are notified in writing, either that the work may commence or that further information relative to human-subjects protection is needed.
The federal rule underneath requires the same written notification, and requires that a disapproval carry its reasons and an opportunity for you to respond. An outcome you dislike is a document you can answer, not a wall. The one thing that cannot be repaired afterwards is data gathered before the notice arrived — including on a project everybody expects to be called improvement work, because that call belongs to the board.
Preparation that touches nobody should run in parallel: drafting the instrument, requesting the site's letter, completing training for everyone named. The FAQ page answers this one short enough to lift whole.
What does the file still owe after a favourable decision?
More than most people expect, and the obligations are printed on the forms themselves rather than buried in a handbook.
- Prior written approval for changes. The Research Protocol Application's acknowledgement states that any additions or changes go to the IRB for written approval before they are implemented. A protocol amended in practice and reported later is a compliance problem, not a paperwork one.
- Immediate notice of adverse or unanticipated events. Adverse consequences, unanticipated side effects, or new information that shifts the risk-benefit picture go promptly to the IRB Chair, who is named in the Bylaws as the point of contact for exactly this.
- Retention of the consent file. The form requires informed-consent documents to be kept for three years following the project's completion date.
- Continuing oversight. The Bylaws subject all approved research to continuing review, re-evaluated at least annually, and the board also performs periodic reviews of approved projects.
- What Herzing receives at the end. A copy of the final deliverable goes to the university, as do later publications or presentations built on the work. The acknowledgement also restricts how the university may be identified in any external report — read that clause before planning a dissemination route.
None of that changes whose project it is. The study, the data and the conclusions belong to you from the first draft to the last presentation; what we build and carry is the file the board reads around them, and the board's judgement remains entirely its own.
What to do next
Work out which of the nine moves your file is standing on. If it is anywhere in one to five, the folder is still in your hands and every fault in it is still free to fix. If it is on six, the next thing the board sees is whatever you sent.
Send us the file as it stands — full pockets, empty pockets, the letter you are still chasing — and the free application review comes back with a written first reading: which pockets would survive a reviewer's pass today, which would not and why, and the one to start on first. It is free, it stands alone, and if the file is ready to send as it is, we will tell you that instead of selling you something. How it works sets out the four tabs we run after that, and where you can stop.
Sources
- Herzing University, Institutional Review Board (IRB) — about, documents and the dated IRB calendar. herzing.edu/institutional-review-board-irb
- Herzing University IRB, Getting Started: Read this First (PDF, October 2025). IRB_Getting_Started_1025.pdf
- Herzing University IRB, Statement of Principles (PDF, September 2025). IRB_Statement_of_Principles.pdf
- Herzing University, Institutional Review Board Bylaws (PDF, September 2025). IRB_Bylaws.pdf
- Herzing University IRB, Application for Research Protocol Approval (PDF, October 2025). IRB_Research_Protocol_Application_1025.pdf
- Herzing University IRB, Application for Improvement or Innovation Project Approval (PDF, November 2025). Healthcare_Improvement_InnovationProject_Application.pdf
- 45 CFR 46.109 and 46.110 (IRB review of research; expedited review procedures), Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. ecfr.gov — 45 CFR part 46
Named forms, routings and calendar dates shift with handbook editions and portal rebuilds. Verify every one of them against Herzing's current IRB handbook or portal; the sequence of moves above does not move.
the other tabs in this file