What to do if your proposal is acccepted

Final Acceptance = provisional acceptance + IRB approval + a successful trial run.

What is provisional acceptance?
When the review process results in a positive judgment for a proposals, we say that it is provisionally accepted. After TESS makes such a judgment, we notify the contact author with a letter of congratulations.

Provisional acceptance is necessary but not sufficient for data collection on to begin. Two additional steps must be taken: the proposal must obtain human subjects approval and it must have a successful trial run.

Human Subjects Documentation
As with any empirical research done by faculty or graduate students, TESS cannot place an experiment on a data collection instrument, until it has in hand a document indicating that the project has received human subjects approval from a university human subjects committee or internal review board (henceforth, we use the term IRB to refer to such administrative bodies.) This documentation may be faxed to us at:

Fax: (215) 746-2911 Attention: Diana Mutz

We do not allow any exceptions to this rule. Moreover, there are no circumstances in which TESS or its data collecting subcontractors can provide IRB reviews. IRB approval is the sole responsibility of the investigators.

We encourage investigators to obtain IRB approval as soon as possible. The longer a researcher waits to get such approval, the longer will be the delay in collecting their data.

To ensure subjects' protection, IRB's often want to know what subjects are told when they are recruited and what questions are used to elicit their demographic information. The scripts used for such purposes in our Internet-based experiments can be found here. (Note: These scripts are viewable only by people who have completed a TESS User Profile.)

To repeat, if a proposal is accepted for placement on a TESS data collection instrument and if the investigators cannot obtain IRB approval, then it is ineligible for inclusion on a TESS data collection instrument.

What is a successful trial run?
After a proposal is formally accepted and TESS receives formal IRB approval, we conduct a trial run. The first stage of the trial run involves a consultation with TESS's data collecting subcontractors. The consultation focuses on how to make the actual conduct of the experiment most effective. A successful trial run entails the instrument running within the allotted time and efforts to gauge whether the experiment can be administered as intended. The trial run is not designed to assess the validity of the underlying hypotheses.

In some cases, the consultation and trial run activities reveal that the actual amount of resources required to conduct the proposed experiment is more than initially anticipated. For example, trial run may show that an experiment budget for two minutes of time actually requires five minutes. Since TESS is a shared instrument, the time limits are strict. The subcontractor and TESS PI's will work with the investigator to fit their experiment into the allocated space. In the event that this cannot be accomplished to the satisfaction of the investigator, there are two options. If we can provide the additional service without decreasing our service to other accepted proposals, then we will ask the investigator to pay the additional costs. If this is not acceptable, then we will ask the investigator to consider submitting a revised proposal to TESS or to consider data collection opportunities that do not involve TESS. As a general rule most problems of this kind can be avoided if investigators conduct trial runs of their own before sending a proposal.

What happens after I get human subjects approval and have a successful trial run?
With the order of final acceptance as their guide, the co-PIs will exercise discretion in combining individual investigators' modules into a given version of the Internet data collection efforts. The TESS PI's and data collection subcontractors will work closely with individual scholars to make sure their modules are appropriately situated within larger instruments.

When will I receive the data from my experiment?
Our goal for investigators who have their proposals accepted is for them to enter the field and have the data back in their hands as soon as possible. We anticipate delivering cleaned data to TESS users within two weeks of taking their module off of the platform. As soon as your experiment is conducted, we will send the data to investigators along with subjects' demographic information and an electronic codebook.

For how long will I have exclusive access to the data from my proposal?
You will have exclusive access to the data for 9 months after the data are delivered. After that time, the data will become available to others via the TESS website. Our goal is to encourage you, the original researchers, to analyze, present, and publish your results as quickly as possible while making innovative data available to the larger scientific community.

What are my obligations to TESS after I receive my data?
All publications using TESS should include the following citation: "Data collected by Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences, NSF Grant 0094964, Diana C. Mutz and Arthur Lupia, Principal Investigators."

Investigators must also agree to prepare a summary description of their results including frequency tables for control and treatment groups presented in a uniform tabular format (which TESS will supply) by the end of the nine-month period. We will post the report immediately on our website and circulate news of the findings via e-mail lists and press releases.