Reviewer FAQs

The Conflict of Interest Policy identifies the reviewers for this process. You may assign a designee for all or portions of your area to assist in the reviews. Please email conflicts.nd.edu or call Audit & Advisory Services at 631-6616 to arrange.

Reviewers are key components of this process. Reviewers are responsible for:

• Emphasizing the annual disclosure requirement to their faculty/staff
• Ensuring submitted disclosures are complete
• Assigning a conflict of interest category when information is submitted
• Developing a Management Plan for managing, reducing or eliminating any conflicts

Novelution is software developed to provide documentation and routing of conflict disclosures. Access is only granted to reviewers, those responsible for administering the system, the University Conflicts Committee and Notre Dame Research Compliance.

While the number of members in your area who are required to submit disclosures may be large, it is only the disclosures with “yes” responses that will require in-depth review. The OnBase system separates the disclosures that have provided any “yes” responses into a departmental review queue. It is possible that none or only a few disclosures will appear in this queue. This queue is where you’ll spend time evaluating any information that has been disclosed.

Disclosures with “no” responses to all questions will be sent to a “no conflicts queue.” Since there is no additional information to read, it is not necessary to pull up each disclosure in this queue. You will be asked, however, to approve these disclosures as complete. If you feel that a member is missing any information on the disclosure, you may send it back to be re-submitted.

During the annual disclosure process, members will have 30 days to submit a disclosure. Reviewers are asked to complete reviews within 15 days after submission. You will receive advanced notice of the annual disclosure deadline and be expected to check Novelution periodically to perform reviews.

Throughout the rest of the year, members are asked to update a disclosure when any change in status affects their conflict of interest disclosure. You will receive an e-mail notice when an updated disclosure is received in Novelution and in need of review.

The Conflict of Interest Program website provides several resources:

• On-demand training in eNDeavor
• Training slides available for print
• Step-by-step job aid for using Novelution
• Standardized templates to use when developing a Management Plan

At any time in this process, you may email conflicts.nd.edu or call Audit & Advisory Services at 631-6616 for further assistance.

All individuals at the University who are in a position to influence or commit University resources are required to disclose any of the following that relate to their work at the University, and that could reasonably appear to others to relate to their work:

• Significant financial interests in a third party entity
• Management positions with a third-party entity
• Professional or personal relationships
• Non-University income from any activities that involve students, staff or the use of Notre Dame facilities

You may assign a designee to assist with this process. If you choose to delegate this task, please ensure the designee has reviewed the on-demand training in eNDeavor or has scheduled one-on-one training (email conflicts.nd.edu to schedule). Additionally, disclosures submitted which contain all “no” responses do not need to be read individually. 

Members should email conflicts.nd.edu or call Audit & Advisory Services at 631-6616 PRIOR to submitting their disclosure. 

Members will receive an email notification of the approaching deadline. Audit & Advisory Services will also be providing a list of members who did not submit disclosures within the expected time frame and asking for your assistance in following up with those individuals.