[Air-l] IRB / REB ... accounts - collection project

[Charles Ess]

Dear AoIR-ists:

The AoIR ethics working committee would like to collect examples of positive
and productive discussions between researchers and Institutional Review
Boards (IRBs), REBs, and their equivalents outside the U.S. and Canadian
borders.

Thanks to the concerted efforts of Mark Johns, Lois Ann Scheidt, Mary Gray,
and the ethics working committee, there is now a website available for
AoIR-ists to help us collect these experiences and insights concerning
working with oversight authorities such as IRBs or their equivalents.

Please see
<http://faculty.luther.edu/~johnsmar/AoIR/AoIRform.htm>

First of all, please be assured that any material provided through this site
will be treated as confidential.  It will be shared initially with the
ethics working committee on our closed list.  If the material promises to be
useful to the larger AoIR membership - it will be distributed only in a form
(e.g., anonymized) explicitly approved by the author(s).

Our goal is to develop a collection of real-world examples of current
ethical issues in Internet research and examples of their resolutions‹first
of all, in order to develop an aggregate picture of contemporary research
ethics.

We think this database of examples, moreover, will be especially useful to
researchers with little previous experience in taking up the issues
typically raised by IRBs and their equivalents, as it will serve as an
introduction and orientation to these issues and the processes of dialogue
and negotiation needed for their successful resolution.

As well, this database should provide a useful set of examples that can
serve as precedents for researchers using similar methodologies, etc., who
must provide their IRBs or equivalents with suitable argumentation and
rationale for their ethical procedures.

Finally, these examples will help the ethics working committee see where the
current AoIR ethical guidelines have been useful‹and where they need further
revision and development. Mark D. Johns, Assistant Professor of
Communication at Luther College, on behalf of the ethics working committee
of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), is using this survey to
gather research data on the experiences of researchers who have utilized the
AoIR Research Ethics guidelines to successfully secure IRB approval for
their research projects.

Again, all information submitted on this website will be treated as
confidential--i.e., it will be discussed as submitted solely by the members
of the AoIR ethics working committee. For use beyond the AoIR ethics working
committee, we will exercise whatever degree of anonymity a researcher may
request for his/her account -- i.e., including the possibility of
anonymizing the researcher, the institution and discipline(s) involved, etc.
We will use specific examples in more public venues -- beginning with the
AoIR list itself -- only after a specific version of a researcher's account
has been submitted to the researcher for review and the researcher has
granted the AoIR ethics working committee permission to use. However, in
order to discuss with you the level of anonymity required, and to receive
any other necessary follow up, it is necessary that you provide an email
address by which we may reach you.

This research is being conducted under the auspices of the Luther College in
Decorah, Iowa USA and the Luther College Human Subjects Research Board
(HSRB). If you have any questions about the intended uses, practices of
anonymity, etc. - please contact Dr. Charles Ess, chair of the AoIR Ethics
Working Committee (cmess at drury.edu), Dr. Mark D. Johns at Luther College
(johnsmar at luther.edu) or Dr. Julie Potter, chair of the Luther College HSRB
(potterju at luther.edu).

While there may well be compelling reasons for researchers _not_ to share
their stories with us in this way - we hope that enough of us will be able
to contribute to this collection so as to eventually constitute a useful set
of examples, insights, precedents, etc. for the AoIR membership.

Our thanks to Mark Johns, Lois Ann Scheidt, and Mary Gray for helping to
realize and shepherd this project along.

Cheers and all best wishes,

Charles Ess
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
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: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23