Stops and Starts

I received IRB approval so I can begin my research now. Captivate arrived in the mail and I was able to complete and submit a prototype. The quarter is winding down, this is probably my last post here. My work year is ending and the students are looking forward to some time off. My plans for the summer include another class and completing this project. It was a pleasure working with everyone, I enjoyed reading the blogs about your process and progress. Hopefully, we will communicate again.

IRB

The last 10 days were spent straightening out my understandings and misunderstandings of the IRB process. If I ever repeat this process it will be easy, mostly because it is easy. The difficulty seems to be in teaching an old dog new tricks. I picked up my signed proposal from Dr. Newberry's office, not realizing letterhead approval would be found elsewhere. Did you know that the only student copy machine in UH is on the 3rd floor? Did you know that that it only likes certain quarters? These perfect quarters only appear once in every 9 quarters and you must utter a prayer (in Latin) for them to be accepted. I tricked the machine by muttering words that only sound like Latin but definitely are not. Who needs Las Vegas when you can feel like a winner because a copy machine reluctantly deigns to accept your money? Rise of the machines indeed. The adminstration building is on the other side of campus and it was a lovely walk. Really. My family will tell you that I can get lost just pulling out of the driveway but that's not true... usually. I did great on this walk because I used to take many classes on that side of campus when I was earning my teaching credential. It wasn't until I actually stepped into the Administration building that you could say I was direction challenged. For goodness sake how hard can it be to find a room number? You just follow the other room numbers until you get there, right? Wrong. I tried programming room 128 into my handheld gps but I think aliens were jamming the signal because it pretended to have no idea what I wanted. Darn thing must be broken, I'm sending it back. Once my mission was complete and I found twilight again my only task was to wait for approval. Alas, I took the wrong CITI program and test (were there directions?) so I had to take the LONG one and resubmit. Then I needed to tweak portions of my proposal and resubmit. Now I know why the submission deadline is two weeks before the actual review: people like me.