Approval to conduct research at NUS

Date: 27 March 2008

We are pleased to inform you that the NUS institutional Review Board has approved the above-mentioned research to be carried out in the Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

w00t!

IRB hates me

I hate IRB.

They are seriously causing me trouble or am I just lousy at anticipating trouble?

Alright so I took a week to do my revisions which is a pain and then she replied saying I need to send her a version that shows where the changes are when I deliberately gave her the copy that removed tracked changes coz I thought it would look more appropriate. Thank god for the function in Word to compare documents for changes.

Fine and then she sent me email asking for "copy of your correspondence with the Malaysian officials who have ascertained that your research does not require their approval, if this is available."

Is it just Malaysia but why do none of my friends got asked if they have proof of official approval to do field work in overseas countries?

After I replied saying I got verbal advise from XXX official, she replied "I will forward your responses to the IRB and revert if there are further queries."

Which means that there will be more delay?!

I am going nuts! I need to move forward with this research!

IRB 1st Contact

Last week I submitted my IRB form via the department. I had mostly copied a senior's IRB application format as his was approved. However, today I got my first email contact from the IRB secretariat with some other unfavourable responses.

Dear Ms Tan,

Project title: Singapore and Its Agricultural Hinterlands: Urban Demand Impact On The Environmental Behaviour Of Malaysian Vegetable Farmers

We refer to your submission for IRB review which we received on 03 Mar 2008. As the FASS GRSS funding is indicated as pending on the application form, please advice if this research will still be carried out regardless of the GRSS grant application outcome. Please note that review by the Board will commence only if the funding is approved or if there are other sources of funding to support this research.

If this study will proceed regardless of the GRSS grant application, please address following:

1) Please submit the following for the review by the Board:

• IRB Application Form: Please complete Section VII of the application form.
• Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form (with Version and Date). Please reference attached Guidelines On Participant Information Sheet And Consent Form.
• Will the list of questions provided in Appendix A1: Aide Memoire be applicable to the interview with the Agencies officials, Government agencies, Retailers, Supermarket Merchandisers and Wholesalers. If otherwise, please provide the list of questions that will be asked to this group of subjects.
• All Survey forms to be used in this research.
• Data collection forms (if any) (with Version and Date).

Please also email us the files of the above document for our records.

2) Please also let us have a copy of the GRSS grant application proposal for our reference.

Thank you.

Perhaps I am too ambitious as previously criticized but I noticed that most people only do interviews with one type of respondents while I have interviews with 5-6 different group of respondents PLUS surveys. Serve me right.

But most of these forms are missing because honestly? I was lazy. Anywho, I have already sent them saying that I would self-fund if GRSS doesn't go through. Also I also sent them my grant application proposal. On top of that I'm working my butt off to finish the aid memoires and survey questions tonight. I'm half way done already. *pleased*