[Air-l] request for descriptions of experiences

[Charles Ess]

Colleagues:

As part of our effort on the ethics working committee to get a sense of
cross-cultural differences concerning guidelines, procedures, and
institutions that affect Internet research, we would be grateful for the
assistance of the aoir folk in the following way.

It is clear that relevant guidelines and decision-making procedures vary
considerably from country to country.  The typical United States university
structure includes an Institutional Review Board (IRB) that has oversight
responsibility for university-based research, especially research that runs
the risk of harming human subjects in some way.  If only because the state
of Internet research ethics is not as developed as, say, the ethical
guidelines for anthropology, psychology, medicine, etc. - it appears that
different university IRBs may be making considerably different sorts of
decisions regarding Internet research.
On the other hand, in Europe - perhaps most notably, in Scandinavia -
apparently stricter guidelines for human subjects research and data privacy
exist than can be found in the U.S.  At the same time, however - at least in
Sweden, according to one of our committee members - there is nothing
equivalent to the U.S. university IRB board.  Rather, there are national
committees with responsibility for ethical oversight - but these committees
do not seem to take an active oversight role: rather, they are consulted
when a researcher is in doubt.
The upshot seems to be: Internet researchers in the U.S. are more directly
confronted with the need to justify their research as ethically sound before
an IRB board (or its equivalent) than colleagues elsewhere.  And while the
relevant law and ethical codes may be stricter elsewhere - the very lack of
such codes in the U.S. may, paradoxically, issue in relatively stricter
limitations on U.S. researchers?

This is clearly a crude and limited picture: here's where we would like to
enlist your help.

We would appreciate not only any general tips and discussion that
researchers may be able to provide the committee - e.g., pointers to ethical
guidelines and law that we may have missed (please review our website
resources - <http://www.cddc.vt.edu/aoir/ethics>  and our preliminary report
- <aoir.org/reports/ethics.html> to see what we have collected over the psat
year), especially outside the U.S. context; descriptions of whatever ethical
regulation may exist and how the process works, etc.
We would also like to request accounts of specific experiences (in effect,
specific case studies) - e.g., examples of where Internet research was
either approved or disapproved on ethical or legal grounds, with some
description of how these decisions were made, by what persons, institutions,
committees, etc.

We're hoping that this sort of information from aoir will give us a better
picture of "what's going on" not just in the U.S. but around the world
regarding oversight of Internet research - specifically as involving the
application of particular ethical guidelines and legal requirements -  as
currently experienced by researchers.

People are welcome to share their experiences with the general aoir list if
they feel comfortable doing so.
Any material sent to me - for distribution to the committee - will be
treated in strictest confidence.  That means: we will not refer to the
material beyond the bounds of the committee without (a) acquiring permission
from the author(s) to do so, (b) protecting the privacy and confidentiality
of the authors as desired - e.g., by keeping material anonymous,  using
pseudonyms and other means of disguising sensitive information, etc.  Of
course, if individuals _want_ to be treated as authors making a
contribution, perhaps to be published as part of our reports, web documents,
etc., with appropriate attribution - we will happily do so as well.  But
please make your preference - i.e., for confidentiality or publicity -
clear. 

On behalf of the ethics working committee - thanks in advance for any
assistance you may be able to provide.

Charles Ess
Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.                          Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435
Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/
"...to be non-violent, we must not wish for anything on this earth which the
meanest and lowest of human beings cannot have." -- Gandhi