Scientific Review Committee

Welcome! Below you will find all necessary information for obtaining the required SRC reviews for your IRB application, whether you’re a McKay School researcher submitting an application for your own study or a thesis/dissertation advisor submitting an application with a student.

For Researchers Submitting Their Own Study:

In order for researchers to be able to submit an application for review by the IRB, it must first be reviewed by the MSE Scientific Review Committee (SRC). The first thing to do once you have completed the IRB application in BYU’s system is to download it using the 'print-friendly' button. From there, you will use the following link to submit your application via Qualtrics to the SRC: https://bit.ly/mse-src-app

Once in Qualtrics, you will first be prompted to conduct a self-review, using the same standards as the SRC. Once you are satisfied with the state of your application, you will upload it and two members of the SRC (typically from your own department) will review it for scientific merit. Our goal is to have this review completed within 3-5 working days. When the study has been approved, the researcher will receive verification emails that contain a completed SRC checklist from each of the reviewers and signed by the chair. Upload these checklists with the other attachments to the IRB application and submit the completed application for IRB review.

Note: If you forget to have your IRB application reviewed by the SRC committee, the IRB will send your application back to you to have this step completed.

For Thesis/Dissertation Advisors:

If you are a thesis/dissertation advisor submitting a study with a student, please follow the steps below:

1. Obtain official approval by the thesis/dissertation committee.
2. The thesis/dissertation advisor will then initiate the SRC Qualtrics application https://bit.ly/mse-src-app, indicate that they’re an advisor, perform a self-review, and verify that the study has been approved by the thesis/dissertation committee. Following these steps, an automatic SRC approval letter will be generated by Qualtrics that can be attached to the IRB application.
3. If any of the above steps result in lack of approval (i.e., by the committee or during self-evaluation), the system will prompt the advisor and student to revise the study/application and re-submit.

SRC Review Process Flowchart

IRB Renewals

Some IRB applications will be undergoing a “renewal,” meaning that these studies are currently underway and an IRB application needs to be resubmitted and reviewed by the IRB to verify compliance with new regulations and to address issues of risk, electronic storage procedures, verification of minimum age of 18 for adult studies, etc. The SRC will NOT be reviewing these “renewal” applications as they have already been reviewed for scientific merit during the first submission. Researchers are to submit these renewals to the IRB directly.

Current SRC Members:

Please refer to the two documents below for the SRC procedures and the self-review. This is the same checklist the SRC members will use to review each IRB application.

•   Scientific Review Committee Flow Chart
•   Scientific Review Checklist