chamberlainirb

Home · Newsletter

Chamberlain IRB approval, step by step: two tracks, one start date

There is no single Chamberlain IRB process. There are two review tracks running at once — Chamberlain's own, and the board your practicum site keeps — and your start date belongs to whichever answers last. Chamberlain's own handbook makes the first track calmer than most people expect: most DNP projects clear prescreening as work that is not human subjects research, and never file a full IRB application at all. The second track is the one nobody warns you about, and it is the one on somebody else's calendar.

Rebecca Lindqvist, DNP, APRN · 2026-08-23

In short

Open both tracks at once. Chamberlain's Prescreening Review Form is filed in NR-705 and must clear your project and practicum faculty on every pass. Your practicum site's board, if it keeps one, reviews separately. Implementation begins only when both have answered in writing.

Why does a DNP project answer to more than one board?

Because the work happens inside somebody else's building. Chamberlain reviews the project because you are enrolled at Chamberlain and the work is submitted for academic credit. The hospital, clinic or health network reviews it because the people you will approach, the charts you will open and the staff whose practice you will change belong to that organisation, and the organisation carries its own liability for them.

Federal guidance explains why the second board does not simply defer to the first. An organisation becomes engaged in human subjects research when its own employees or agents, for research purposes, intervene or interact with participants, obtain identifiable private information, or obtain consent. An engaged organisation is expected to hold a Federalwide Assurance and secure IRB review, or to be covered by a formal reliance arrangement. Which side of that line your site places itself on is exactly what its own review decides, and Chamberlain cannot answer it on the site's behalf.

That produces the asymmetry that governs all scheduling. Chamberlain's track is a document you control, so its pace is largely the pace at which you assemble it. The site's track is an agenda you do not control. It is why we argue for opening the site's board before the Chamberlain file is finished.

What actually gets filed at Chamberlain, and when?

In NR-705 — the second DNP Project & Practicum course — you file the Chamberlain University Prescreening Review Form. Read the handbook's next sentence carefully, because it reframes the whole track: most DNP projects will meet the prescreening criteria for a determination that the project does not constitute human subjects research, and so most will never submit the full IRB application package.

This is the most misunderstood fact about the route. People brace for full board review of a project that, by design, applies evidence that already exists. Chamberlain's IRB Handbook states that projects which neither involve human subjects nor contribute to generalizable knowledge do not require IRB review; prescreening is what says so in writing.

Which is why filing is not optional even when the answer is predictable. Without the determination you have an opinion; with it, a record that satisfies your faculty, your site and later your manuscript. Whether your project stays on the calm side of that line is the subject of the piece on QI, research, and the determination you still file for.

Two procedural details reorganise how you work. Every iteration of the Prescreening Review Form must be approved by your project and practicum course faculty — every version, including every revision. And incomplete packets are not reviewed until all items are supplied, so a missing attachment starts no review at all.

How long does review take?

We do not publish timings, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Chamberlain's handbook names the three things the timeframe depends on: the level of review required, the IRB's scheduled meeting dates, and the number of revisions needed. Chamberlain's IRB Handbook carries its own planning estimates, and that document is where you should read them.

What matters more is which variable you can move. Not the meeting calendar — the board meets on a published schedule rather than continuously. You can influence the level of review, because level follows from design. And you can very nearly eliminate the third, because revisions are overwhelmingly caused by incomplete or inconsistent files rather than by ethically doubtful projects.

One limit deserves planning around: Chamberlain's IRB Handbook states that revised submissions are re-reviewed a maximum of two times, after which a proposal that still falls short goes to the full board for a final vote, and a proposal not approved at that stage is denied and must begin again as a new application. Revision passes are a finite resource. Spend them on substance, never on formatting.

What happens on each track, station by station?

The tracks are genuinely parallel. Read across rather than down: each row is a moment in the project, answered differently on each track.

Station The Chamberlain track The practicum site's track
Before drafting CITI human subjects training complete under a Chamberlain affiliation, in the course that matches the work. Identify whether the site requires an IRB at all — the handbook makes this your responsibility, not the coordinator's.
Access secured Practicum application, readiness form and preceptor documents filed; practicum courses cannot be entered without them. A Clinical Affiliation Agreement, signed by a duly authorised officer of the facility. Chamberlain's team secures it; the handbook warns the process can be lengthy.
The framing settled Purpose, measures and dissemination written consistently as an evidence-based practice change. The site decides for itself whether the same pages read as improvement work or as research.
The filing Prescreening Review Form in NR-705; the full IRB application package only if prescreening says research. The site's own application in its own vocabulary, to its own committee.
Internal clearance Course faculty approve every iteration before it goes forward. Departmental or nursing leadership sign-off is commonly required before a council will accept a submission.
Replies Revisions re-reviewed a limited number of times before a final vote. Each return waits for another pass of the council's agenda.
The outcome A written prescreening determination, or an approval letter where full review applied. A separate written approval from a separate committee.

Drawn from Chamberlain's current DNP Project & Practicum Handbook and IRB Handbook. Where those documents and Chamberlain's current IRB portal differ, the portal governs.

What has to be true before you file anything?

  1. CITI training is done under a Chamberlain affiliation. The IRB Handbook directs everyone submitting to complete CITI training and choose either the Social & Behavioral or the Biomedical course. The certificate goes in with the materials, and specialised populations may require extra modules.
  2. The site is formally arranged. The Clinical Affiliation Agreement is signed by an authorised officer, and the Letter of Support from the site's decision maker is in hand.
  3. You know whether the site keeps a board. Ask in writing, and get the answer in writing — “no board required” is itself a useful answer.
  4. The framing is settled before drafting. Improvement or research is not a label applied at the end — it drives the purpose statement, the measures and the consent materials.
  5. Every document exists and agrees with every other document. Two boards receive two descriptions of one project. When versions drift, both boards notice.
  6. Your faculty member has read the current iteration. Not the previous one.

What happens when a board sends the file back?

It is returned, not rejected. Chamberlain's published criteria mirror the federal ones: risks minimised and reasonable against anticipated benefits, equitable selection, consent sought and documented unless waived, adequate data security and confidentiality, and extra safeguards where participants may be vulnerable to coercion. A return means one of those findings cannot yet be made from what is in front of the board — a document problem with a document solution.

Answer a return as a document in its own right: every point quoted, every point answered, each answer tied to the revised page. On the Chamberlain track the revision passes through your faculty member first.

When does implementation actually begin?

At the junction, and not before. Chamberlain's handbook draws the line twice. You may not begin participant recruitment or data collection until the written prescreening outcome has been received and your project and practicum course faculty has been notified — note that the condition has two halves. And implementation in NR-707 cannot begin until all Chamberlain prescreening and site IRB approvals are complete.

Neither letter substitutes for the other. Chamberlain's determination binds Chamberlain; it is not permission to walk onto a unit. And there is no retroactive permission: Chamberlain's IRB Handbook states the board will not approve studies that have already been completed. That is why a baseline chart pull, an early staff survey or a quiet pilot week can invalidate otherwise sound work. Every instrument stays in the drawer until both answers are in writing. The full document list that must be ready by then is set out in the document checklist.

What to do next

Do one thing today: ask your practicum site, in writing, whether it requires IRB review for a project like yours and when that body accepts submissions. Chamberlain's handbook puts that identification on you, and nothing else can be scheduled sensibly until you have the answer.

Then bring the project as it stands. Request the free application review. Both tracks get read, and the written reply covers: which boards you answer to, which door to open first, what each will want, and what is missing. If one board turns out to be all you need, that is what the review will say. How it works sets out what we carry from there — both tracks, every document, both submissions, every reply, until both approvals are in writing. The project, the data and the findings stay yours; each board's decision is its own.

Sources

Chamberlain's current handbook or IRB portal is the authority here; where it departs from anything on this page, follow Chamberlain. This is an independent practice, unaffiliated with Chamberlain University.

Ingrid Solberg, MSN, RN
Application desk
online