APPD SEEK (Formerly RSLC)

1. The principal investigator submits completed survey proposal by January 31, May 31, or September 30.
   1. Be strategic in choosing the population you wish to survey. In order to limit survey fatigue, we will only send two surveys per cycle to each respondent group (pediatric program directors, associate program directors, coordinators, and chief residents). As program directors are most frequently surveyed, we encourage investigators to consider whether other representative groups can be surveyed instead. This will generally increase the chance of a survey being accepted for distribution.
2. The Chair and Vice-Chair of the APPD Research and Scholarship Learning Community (RSLC) will solicit at least 2 reviewers from members of the APPD RSLC.
3. Reviewers will review the survey using a standardized survey review form, providing recommendations to the Chair/Vice-Chair to approve/revise and resubmit/deny the survey and provide any significant suggestions/comments. The goal of the review is to triage and offer suggestions, focusing on appropriateness of content, methodology, number/type of programs needed to survey, survey length, and identifying any significant limitations of the survey.
4. The Chair and Vice-Chair will synthesize survey proposal recommendations and determine if a survey proposal is approved, requires revisions and a resubmission, or is denied. If the principal investigator is asked to revise and resubmit, the principal investigator can coordinate revisions with the RSLC team and resubmit their proposal for the next review cycle.
   1. Depending on the number of surveys being fielded in a particular cycle, RSLC may ask the principal investigator to submit revisions for an off-cycle review.
5. APPD management will communicate survey proposal decisions and suggestions for revision to researchers within approximately 8 weeks of the survey submission deadline for that cycle.
6. Principal investigators of accepted surveys will work with the APPD Research Program Manager to enter their survey into the survey platform, LimeSurvey, for dissemination.
7. Principal investigators will draft invitation and reminder emails using this template.
8. During data collection, up to 1 invitation and 5 weekly reminders will be sent out for each survey. If there are multiple points of contact at an institution, up to 1 invitation and 2 weekly reminders will be sent to the first contact by alphabetical order. If a contact does not respond in that time, the next point of contact by alphabetical order will be contacted. This process will be done for up to 3 contacts per institution.
9. After data collection has concluded, the APPD Research Program Manager will export the data from LimeSurvey, review the files for any potentially identifiable information, and share the cleaned results with the principal investigators. Data will be reported in aggregate with no personal or program identifiers included.
10. The principal investigator will submit a 1-year survey results summary to APPD RSLC. Investigators who do not submit a 1-year survey results summary may NOT submit subsequent surveys for review and approval to the APPD RSLC. Investigators should also inform the APPD RSLC of any works of scholarship (including presentations and/or publications) where survey design or data was used. APPD management will issue a reminder/request for survey results summary 3 months before it is due and follow-up at the deadline, if necessary.

You can view the rubric that APPD RSLC uses to review survey proposals here.

Authors for all accepted surveys will receive the following data from APPD, in addition to answers to individual survey questions:

• Program size
• Program location (region)
• Type of academic affiliation

No identifying program information or respondent information will be provided.

To reduce question burden for survey respondents, authors no longer need to ask any questions related to program size, location, or type of academic affiliation.

1. APPD leadership surveys - Surveys developed by leadership to address key APPD issues. This could be in conjunction with Periodic Surveys or separate surveys. The APPD Board of Directors and Executive Committees are encouraged to seek input from the Research and Scholarship Learning Community when developing surveys, but that is not essential. The APPD Executive Committees are required to send all surveys to the APPD Board for approval before disseminating.
2. APPD internal/member-sponsored surveys - Surveys developed from PDs or members as a principal investigator or co-investigator. These may be generated by individuals, or potentially in response to a Request for Proposals call to stimulate research in a particular topic area as requested by the Leadership or Research Committees.
3. External Partners Organizations - Organizations that are members of the Federation of Pediatric Organizations (FOPO) periodically desire input from PDs on issues related to medical education.
4. External/unsponsored surveys - Surveys developed without any PD input or participation. These may be generated by individuals, or potentially in response to a Request for Proposals call to stimulate research in a particular topic area as requested by the Leadership of Research committees. These will be the lowest priority unless in response to an RFP.

Of note: surveys that address a narrow curriculum area are the least likely to receive a high priority score from reviewers. Please keep this in mind when designing surveys to respondent groups.

1. An APPD Member would alert APPD Research and Scholarship Learning Community Chair/Vice Chair that a non-approved survey was distributed.
2. The APPD Research and Scholarship Learning Community Chair/Vice Chair would send out an email to the survey PI with the following wording:

"It has come to our attention that you distributed a survey to Association of Pediatric Program Directors (APPD) members without approval by the APPD Research and Scholarship Learning Community. It is our policy that all surveys distributed to APPD members go through the review process established by the APPD Research and Scholarship Learning Community to minimize the survey burden to our membership and ensure that all surveys are of high quality.

Any scholarship produced from this non-approved survey will NOT be eligible for presentation at APPD. In addition, investigators who send out more than one non-approved survey to APPD members will not be eligible to present any scholarship at future APPD meetings.

If you have any questions about the process, feel free to contact the current Research and Scholarship Learning Community Chair and Vice Chair (names and emails will be provided)."