General Discussions

  • 1.  Template submission forms for offline access

    CAB Member
    Posted 02-25-2021 05:49
    Hi Cayuse Community members,

    One of the most frequent requests we get from our researchers is for access to an offline (non-Cayuse) "template" initial submission form. The reasoning they give is that they a) prefer to work in other applications such as Word, or b) want to be able to share the form with students or external collaborators who may not have access to Cayuse. Obviously I understand that the Smart Form flexibility renders the direct "exportability" impractical given that there are so many paths a researcher could take. Does anyone have a creative solution to this problem that has satisfied their investigator community? I'm hesitant to merely generate a Word document with a list of potential questions given the complexity of our initial submission template and the perpetual need to update that alongside updates to the Cayuse form. I also suspect the template will be less useful to the researchers than they predict, given that it would not be possible to upload responses back into Cayuse. Any other suggested approaches?

    Thanks in advance for your feedback!

    Kaitlin Gottuso
    Villanova University

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    Kaitlin Gottuso
    Interim Director
    Villanova University
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  • 2.  RE: Template submission forms for offline access

    SUPERSTAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 02-26-2021 05:58
    Hello Kaitlin,

    I've had different reasons for doing so (AAALAC Program Description, audit, software maintenance downtime) in the IACUC module (sorry, spacing out on the current nomenclature), but what I have done is generate a draft protocol, in which I trigger all possible animated responses to open up, and then I open up a Preview (all questions in-line), copy all, and paste into a Word file.  The formatting is a bit horrible when I do this, and requires some tweaking to make it presentable.  If you do something like this, you might want to put protections on the document so the users can't change or delete the actual questions they're working with, just enter responses.  You could also add instructions at the beginning to outline your expectations for how the form is to be used, and perhaps give the document an expiration date in the header and/or footer, given that your application may go thru periodic updates.

    Cheers,
    Cheryl


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    Cheryl Cheney, CPIA
    IACUC Coordinator/Compliance Specialist
    Biogen
    Cambridge, MA
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  • 3.  RE: Template submission forms for offline access

    RISING STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 02-26-2021 06:30
    Kaitlin,

    I have had a professor have their students actually submit a complete protocol, but add the course code in the title, so they know not to certify the initial submission.  This way, they never actually come to the IRB and I can easily filter them out in reporting.

    When I first noticed this, I panicked a little with 30 half-baked submissions within a couple of days awaiting certification from the same PI -- but after some discussion we decided this would work well as a practice session.  Some of these students will go on to submit a protocol for their master's thesis, and they have will have gotten a feel for the system and the types of questions they will need to address.  The only downside is reminding the faculty to withdraw all of the practice protocols after the semester ends.

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    Matt Zembrzuski
    Research Compliance Manager
    American University
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  • 4.  RE: Template submission forms for offline access

    Posted 03-02-2021 07:50
    Kaitlin,

    I'd like to second what Matt mentioned and add a little bit more. I have had Faculty members who have found the method Matt described to be a good way to prepare students for when they need to submit protocols for theses and dissertations.

    I have also worked with researchers who have requested a template like this to create a model submission in Cayuse for them to share with others. The templates were designed to cover the most common type of research that they would engage in and model responses to our submission prompts were provided. Then, using the "Find People" button, either myself or the researcher could give other people access to the sample submission. Besides when we were adding people to the protocol, we kept the sample in the awaiting authorization stage so that people did not accidentally change it. Just like any form, the sample would need to be updated should you ever revise the submission form.

    If something like a sample form was not what the person was looking for, I have also found just telling them what information to have ready alongside a gentle nudge suggesting that it would be best to just start filling out the form has worked as well.

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    Tim Deering
    Human Subjects Research Specialist
    Illinois State University
    tjdeeri@ilstu.edu
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