At Walden, ethics approval is a correspondence — your application, the board's reply, your revision, its letter of approval. We are the independent desk that handles the entire Walden IRB process end to end — the determination, every document, the submission itself, and every reply to the board until the approval letter — every week. The study, the data, and the findings stay yours; the decision stays the board's.
For professionals and doctoral candidates at the IRB step of a capstone, DNP project, doctoral study, or dissertation.
— and files read every week
Walden fixes the sequence. Your doctoral committee approves the proposal; the University Research Reviewer concurs; only then does the board read a word. And until the board's approval letter exists — carrying its number — no participant is contacted, no chart is opened, no survey leaves your outbox.
Data gathered on the wrong side of the line is not early — it is unusable, and it can put the whole study in question. The number on the approval letter follows you: Walden expects it printed in the final study itself. Everything else on this page exists to get you across that line in as few letters as possible.
Revision requests arrive courteous and unhurried, and every sentence is a task with a document attached. Below: a composite reply, assembled from the letters candidates bring to this desk — read the way we read it.
Dear researcher,
“Thank you for your submission. The board requests the following revisions before a determination can be made.”
reads as — nothing is approved. Every item below returns in one coordinated resubmission; a partial reply reopens the whole exchange.
“Please clarify how prospective participants will learn of the study.”
reads as — recruitment materials are missing or paraphrased. Every flyer, email, script, and post a participant could see goes in verbatim, each as its own document.
“Please describe how participants will be informed that participation is voluntary and may be discontinued at any time.”
reads as — the consent form is short of a required element. Voluntariness and withdrawal are written clauses in plain language — not implications.
“Kindly provide documentation of the cooperating site's agreement to host the study.”
reads as — goodwill is not a document. The board wants a letter of cooperation on the site's letterhead, signed by someone with actual authority to grant access.
“Please describe your professional relationship to the research site and to prospective participants.”
reads as — the conflict-of-interest question. If the site is your workplace, the board already suspects it — it is waiting for your dual-role plan. Run the reading below.
“Please specify where study data will be stored, who will have access, and for how long.”
reads as — “securely stored” is not an answer. Name the device, the encryption, the access list, the retention period, and the destruction date.
“We look forward to receiving your revised materials.”
— the board
reads as — the exchange stays open until everything above comes back, whole. Whether it comes back whole is the one part you control.
This is the letter we write against — and, when it comes anyway, the letter we answer. A file built to meet these sentences before they are sent is a file the board has fewer reasons to return; when it returns regardless, the revision response is ours to write, and we carry the exchange until the approval letter. Bring us what you have — the review is free.
Most Walden capstones and DNP projects run inside the building where the candidate already works. The board does not forbid that — it asks about it, precisely. Answer five questions the way you would answer them in writing; the reading tells you whether this is a file you can reasonably carry alone.
To the board — enclosed please find:
— filed once, filed whole
If your project exists to improve practice at one site — not to produce knowledge meant to travel — it may read as quality improvement rather than human-subjects research. The distinction is real, it changes what you prepare, and it is not yours to declare: the determination belongs to the board, under Walden's current handbook and portal.
The first thing we settle is which letter you are actually writing — honestly, before a month goes into the wrong one. Then we build the right one, and carry it through.
We handle the whole Walden IRB process for you, every week, from the first question to the approval letter. It runs in three moves:
Two things stay exactly where they belong. The research — the study, the data, the findings — is yours; we do not conduct it and we do not author it. The decision is the board's, and only the board's. Everything between those two is ours to carry.
— the desk
Every file that leaves this desk has been read by more than one of us. These are the people who hold the pen when the board writes back.
Lead IRB consultant, doctoral review
Cecilia makes the determination call and writes the plan: research or quality improvement, which review path, and what the board will ask of this particular file. She has read more Walden revision letters than anyone at the desk, and she still reads every one that comes in.
Consent, instruments, data-security plans
Josephine builds the documents the board reads most closely: the consent document element by element, instruments aligned to the signed proposal, and a data-security plan that names the device, the encryption, and the destruction date. She came through a DNP project herself and remembers exactly which sentence the board sent back.
Site letters, submissions, board correspondence
Lauren drafts the letters of cooperation for the partner site's signature, files the application, and carries every reply that follows: revision responses, amendments, continuing review. If a site is willing but unsure what its letter must say, she is the one who writes the page.
My project was at the hospital where I work, and I had no idea the board would ask me, in writing, who I supervised. The desk had the dual-role plan in the file before I filed. The reply letter asked for one clarification, not a rewrite.
I was three weeks into writing a full human-subjects application for what Cecilia read in one call as quality improvement. She told me plainly, showed me why, and we prepared the right file instead. I have never been so relieved to be told I was wrong.
My site was willing, but nobody there knew what a letter of cooperation needed to say, and I was emailing a director who kept asking me to write it. Lauren drafted it on their letterhead for signature and it was back in two days. The board never mentioned it again.
The board wrote back with six polite sentences and I read them as six rejections. The desk read them as six tasks, wrote the response, and handled the whole exchange until the letter with the number arrived. I did not draft a single reply myself.
We quote each package after the free review, so what you pay matches your file, not a price list.
A written quote after the free application review. Fixed fee, never hourly.
A written quote after the free application review. Fixed fee, never hourly.
A written quote after the free application review. Fixed fee, never hourly.
Nine questions arrive at this desk more often than all the others together. Each gets its answer in a line, the way we would give it across the desk; open the longer reply when you want the reasoning.
Dear candidate — in the order they are usually asked:
Yes. A Walden DNP project files with the IRB even when it is framed as quality improvement; the board issues the determination, and nothing touches participants or data until that determination is in hand.
The determination is the board's to make, not yours to declare — which is why the first thing we settle, before a single form is opened, is which letter you are actually writing: human-subjects research or quality improvement.
Walden's ethics review comes after your doctoral committee approves the proposal and the University Research Reviewer concurs, and before any recruitment or contact with data. The approval letter carries a number, and Walden expects it printed in the final study.
Exhibit A, at the top of this page, draws the sequence. Where Walden's current handbook or IRB portal fixes a step differently for your program, the handbook governs.
No. Anything gathered before the board's approval letter exists can be invalidated and can put the whole study in question; recruitment, chart access and surveys all wait for the letter.
That includes pilot conversations, informal surveys, and pulling records you can already open at work. The line is the approval letter, not your intentions.
The board examines conflict of interest and your dual roles closely. Plan the separation — who recruits, who consents, who opens identifiable data — and secure the partner site's cooperation before filing, not after the board asks.
Most Walden capstones run inside the building where the candidate already works; the board does not forbid it, it asks about it precisely. The own-workplace reading above tells you how exposed your file is.
A letter of cooperation is the partner site's written permission, on its letterhead, signed by someone with authority, naming what you will access there. Organizations sign slowly, so the file waits on that one page.
Goodwill is not a document. If the site is willing but unsure what the letter must say, the desk drafts it on their letterhead for signature.
Yes. You need current CITI human-research training, in the modules matching your study, under the same name the application carries; the board checks the date.
Which modules your study calls for is set by Walden's current handbook and IRB portal. An expired or mismatched certificate is an avoidable reason for the board to write back.
Risk and population decide it: minimal-risk work may qualify as exempt or expedited, while studies involving identifiable data or vulnerable populations go to the full board. The board, not the applicant, makes the final call.
The path changes what the file must enclose and how closely the board reads it; the categories themselves live in Walden's current handbook and IRB portal. The review-path call is the first thing we put in writing.
The file is returned, not rejected. You answer every point in one point-by-point response and resubmit the whole file; each pass is a full review cycle, so a partial reply reopens the exchange.
The composite reply above shows what each polite sentence actually requires. Under Full Handover, the revision response — and every letter after it — is ours to write.
We do not conduct the research; we handle the entire IRB process end to end while the study stays yours and the decision stays the board's. Fees are quoted in writing after the free review: three packages, with Full Handover the premium.
Determination & Plan, The Complete File, and Full Handover — the premium, which takes the submission and every reply to the board off your desk. Fixed fee, never hourly.
— the desk
A question that is not here belongs in your first letter. The review is free.
the practice
consultants to Walden doctoral candidates
at the ethics step
To: the candidate whose proposal is signed, whose reviewer has concurred — and whose application hasn't gone in yet.
The free application review is the entry: we read what you have as the board will and tell you exactly where it stands — including, when it is true, “file it as it stands.” Then we take the whole process from there — every document, the submission, every reply — until the approval letter. No cost to begin, no obligation.
🍂 September
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