College of Nursing - Dissertation Guide

7 quantitative or qualitative in design. For annotated outline specific to the type of research design, see Appendix E. Proposal Defense When the committee determines the student is eligible to defend the proposal, the proposal defense will be scheduled. The proposal defense is an oral presentation of the first three chapters of the dissertation and may be done by telecommunication. The student will have 20 minutes to present a PowerPoint presentation, followed by a question and answer session. The student should be prepared to explain the background of the problem, purpose of the research, philosophical underpinnings and theoretical framework, rationale for the approach including data collection and analysis. The student should email a PowerPoint presentation to each committee member 48 hours before the proposal date. Only the committee members and the PhD Program Director may attend the proposal defense. After a successful defense, the student will secure signatures on the Approval of Proposal Defense form (Appendix C). NOTE: After successful proposal defense, the student should change the verb tense to past tense in chapters one and three. Chapters four and five are written in past tense. Institutional Review Board The purpose of the IRB is to protect human subjects involved in research and ensure appropriate practices are being carried out at NSU. After successful completion of the proposal defense, the student must seek approval for their study from the NSU IRB. After approval, the student may then seek approval from the IRB at participating institutions, if applicable. The student must adhere to University policy regarding research involving human subjects. All research instruments and protocols must be approved by NSU IRB prior to start of data collection. This includes retrospective data, surveys of any type, interviews, testing or any other types of assessments involving human subjects. No data collection can occur prior to the IRB approval. The Chairperson will assist the student with the IRB application. The student should contact the IRB representative by the time the student has a draft of the proposal. The student may obtain additional information from the IRB's homepage, http://www.nova.edu/irb CITI Training NSU has determined that all individuals involved in research with human subjects, including investigators (principal and co-) as well as members of the research team must complete the CITI Course in the Protection of Human Subjects . CITI is comprised of certain modules. Each college/center at NSU selected the modules that their respective investigators would have to complete. Please be sure to register for the correct learner group that reflects the center/college to which the students belong. Please visit the CITI website, www.citiprogram.org, to register and complete the requisite modules. The CITI program must be completed prior to submitting to the IRB for initial review of a protocol or for continuing review or revision of a previously approved protocol.