Documents requiring Capella University signature must be reviewed by Capella University prior to signing. Mentors are not able to sign these agreements. If you need this document reviewed and signed, send a copy of the agreement to irb@capella.edu, who will co-ordinate the review of this document. Be advised the original review of this document may take several weeks. If an agreement requires changes, it may take Capella University and the other parties a few months to negotiate a contract. Therefore, we recommend that learners pursue review of these contracts early in their dissertation process.

If an agreement is asking your mentor to sign as the principal investigator/researcher, you must also contact the IRB Office. As Capella University requires researchers to conduct their research independently with their mentors oversight (but the mentor is not part of the research team collecting and analysing data), researchers are required to sign as the principal investigator.

Note that there are some restricted data sets that CU learners wish to access for their research. Due to the stringent data requirements (normally that the mentor will take receipt of the data, keep it in a secure office and only allow the learner access in person, along with other security requirements), CU learners are not allowed to access this data. Examples of this data is the ICSPR and Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) restricted Data.