Terms: how the practice works with you.

Who we are, and who we are not

gcuirb.com is the doctoral-file desk of an independent consulting practice. The practice is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Grand Canyon University, the College of Doctoral Studies, or the university's institutional review board, and nothing on this site or in our work speaks for any of them. Grand Canyon University, GCU and related marks are trademarks of their respective owners, used only to identify the institution whose review process is discussed. Where anything we say and GCU's own materials differ, GCU's current doctoral handbook or IRB portal governs.

What we do

We handle the IRB process end to end for doctoral candidates and professionals: the level-of-review reading and the document plan; the drafting of the application, consent and assent documents, recruitment materials, the instrument alignment and permissions, the data-security plan, and site authorization letters for signature; the submission in GCU's current IRB portal with your sign-off; and every reply to the board — revision responses, amendments, continuing review — until the determination or approval letter, according to the package you accept. The how-it-works page describes the work; the pricing page describes the packages.

What we do not do

• We do not conduct your research, collect your data, run your analysis or author your findings. The study, the data and the findings are yours and your committee's.
• We do not predict, promise or influence the board's decision. The board's decisions are its own, made on the file it reads.
• We do not represent you to Grand Canyon University, contact the university or the board about you without your instruction, or file anything in your name without your sign-off.
• We do not give legal advice. Nothing on this site is legal advice, and our work does not replace any obligation you have under GCU's policies or under the regulations that govern human-subjects research.

The free application review

The free application review is free, carries no obligation, and ends in a written finding. It is a reading by the practice, not a determination by the board. Sometimes the finding is that your file is clean and your category exempt and that you should file it yourself; that finding is final as far as we are concerned, and no quote follows it unless you ask for one.

Quotes, fees and payment

Every package is quoted in writing after the free application review, as a single fixed fee for the scope the quote describes. There is no hourly billing. The quote states what is included, what is not, and when payment is due; where the quote and this page differ, the quote governs. Work begins when you accept the quote in writing. If the scope changes after acceptance — a new site, a design change from your committee, a step up from one package to another — the change is quoted in writing before any work on it begins, and nothing already paid for is charged twice.

What we ask of you

• Accurate and complete information: the proposal as AQR approved it, any correspondence from the board, your instruments and their permissions, the sites involved, and prompt word of anything that changes.
• Your sign-off where it is needed: on documents before they are filed, on the submission, and on every reply to the board.
• Your own access to GCU's current IRB portal and the DC Network where GCU requires the candidate's own access, and your own compliance with GCU's policies — including its research and academic-integrity policies — which our work is designed to support, never to sidestep.
• Running the study exactly as approved once the letter arrives, and telling us before anything changes so an amendment can go to the board first.

Confidentiality

Everything you send us — the proposal, the board's letters, your drafts, your data-handling arrangements — is held in confidence, used only to prepare your file, and shared with nobody outside the practice and the providers who host our systems. The privacy page sets out what we keep and for how long.

Your documents

The documents we draft for your file are yours to use for that file once the quote they belong to is paid. Our templates, checklists, readings and methods remain ours; you are welcome to the results of them and not to the machinery.

What we can and cannot promise

We promise careful, aligned, complete work on the file, done by the people named on the bench, in the order and to the scope the quote describes. We do not promise an outcome, a level of review, a date, or a board's reply, because none of those is ours to promise. We are responsible for our work; we are not responsible for the board's decisions, for GCU's policies or changes to them, for how the study is run, or for information we were given that turned out to be incomplete or wrong. If our work falls short of the quote, our responsibility is to put it right, and in any case is limited to the fee paid for that work.

Using this site

The pages on this site are general information about the GCU IRB process as the practice understands it and are not advice about your particular file; the free application review is where that begins. You may read, link to and quote from the site with attribution; you may not copy its pages, drawings or text to present as your own or another service's.

Changes, and where to ask

If these terms change in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it. Questions go to hello@gcuirb.com, or to the chat on any page. The accessibility page sets out how the site is built to be used by everyone.