Naming Conventions
With the arrival of IRAP for Human Subjects Research, the IRB instituted a naming convention for all uploaded documents. The naming convention is necessary for several reasons:
- Your approval form will list the names of the individual documents reviewed within a submission. In this way, you and your sponsor know each document reviewed and its version date.
- We will electronically stamp consent documents through IRAP. The IRB approval stamp will be located in the upper right-hand corner on the first page of the consent form.
- Both of these functions require IRB staff to choose from a list of documents that contains every document ever uploaded for a project, including obsolete and incorrect versions. Through the life of a project, that list could get very long and repetitive. Use of the naming convention allows reviewers to easily identify the most current documents and to review only those that are applicable to a particular submission.
Overview
The convention consists of four components:
documentname(description).editview.YYMMDD
documentname = the name of the document that you give it when you upload your file
(description) = brief description used to clarify (only needed when applicable, see Examples & Tips)
.editview = tracked vs. clean (only needed when applicable see Examples & Tips)
.yymmdd = version date suffix
Example:
consent(controls).clean.180814
surveyquest(demographics).180814
praf(new flyer).180814
hsp.tracked.180105
porf.180105
Category
The category you choose also matters. Not all documents are “irb submission form”, which is the default. Choose appropriately and follow our guidelines. Only documents in the “consent/assent document” category can be stamped electronically.