From 1987 until this year we used a simple IBM data base program
called Filing Assistant and a companions program called Reporting
Assistant.  Everyone in the office was a newcomer to computers then,
; even so, we could master both programs in an afternoon.  We designed
the form for tracking projects ourselves; Reporting Assistant was
powerful enough to generate most of the reports we needed, and if
we needed more power (to sort on more than just the first two columnus
of a report, for example) we could retrieve a Reporting Assistant File
into Lotus, parse it, and manipulate it there.

This year we changed to Windows and after checking various data base
programs we settled on Approach, a data base program that comes as
part of the Lotus suite.  We kept the same form for IRB records that
we used in Filing Assistant and "migrated" the Filing Assistant to
data base to Approach ourselves.  We picked Approach because it seemed
simpler than Paradox, dBase, and other programs that apparently require
programming, but was powerful enough to generate the reports and
analyses we need.

I haven't found Approach to be "intuitive"; I tried to learn it using
just the on-screen help function, and found many of the help screens
useless; felt I was struggling with a being with different thought
patterns than mine.  But after learning the "old" way, by reading just
the first chapter in the print manual, things began to fall into place
very quickly.

In sum, the record keeping required by IRBs can be set up by ordinary
people using generic data base programs; and even a very simple data
base programs, so far as I can see, can fill all the needsof an IRB.
We could still function perfectly with Filing Assistant.

Peter J. Dolce
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Meharry Medical  College
Nashville, TN  37208
P 615 327 6703
F 615 372 6738
xxxxxx@ccvax.mmc.edu