[Air-L] Public/ Private

[Lois Ann Scheidt]

As usual Charlie raises an excellent point.  When you look at the 
medical model from which IRB rules have sprouted, the primary issue is 
does the intervention itself cause harm.  While the term "intervention" 
would be a lot fuzzier for social science research I think the thought 
process one would use to work through the logic is very useful.

Lois Ann Scheidt

Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana
University, Bloomington IN USA

Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and
IUPUC, Columbus IN USA

Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com


Quoting Charlie Balch <charlie at balch.org>:

> It should be noted that the act of deleting internet content does not remove
> its availability. Sites like http://archive.org claim to record the entire
> internet history and provide free access and comparisons of content changes.
>
> I've occasionally explored the evolution of content using archive.org (I've
> no association other than an occasional user). My interest has mostly been
> how business and government sites change but the possibility of looking at
> revisionist blogs is a fascinating research opportunity.
>
> I've also written software that allows me to "scrape" or aggregate public
> information when the owners would not or could not provide the database for
> analysis. I've not published the information collected from my scrapes for a
> variety of reasons. Mostly because I'm lazy and the value of self-selected
> responses to surveys are very questionable.
>
> Then again, I suspect I could find "serious flaws" in almost *any* research
> design. I continue to be amazed that research provides useful results
> despite how easy it is to find errors in the research process.
>
> As a bottom line, if you post it on the net, it is public. The publisher
> might regret their post but that does not make it private. Yes, additional
> exposure might bring some greater harm to the poster but the poster has
> brought it upon themselves.
>
> IRBs should focus on research where an *intervention* might cause the
> participant harm.
>
> Charlie Balch Me.D, MBA, Ph.D yada yada
> professor of Computer Information Systems
> Arizona Western College
> http://charlie.balch.org
>
>
>
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