[Air-L] Online research ethics

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

>
> I think one could do citation analysis without IRB approval...though  
> I don't know the actual history of that form of research...because  
> the real unit of analysis is the citation.  What I see happen most  
> often in these discussion is that the online presence of text, pics,  
> etc is being used as an access point to
> infer about the humans using the technology...that's human subjects  
> research because the real unit of analysis is the person not the  
> online text, pics, whatever.  The online content is an access point  
> to gather information about the people.


I disagree, i think one can research systems and representations of  
people without creating human subjects.  It is a question in that case  
of the level of analysis of your inference.  If you are collecting a  
whole bunch of blogs and doing a content analysis to talk about  
bloggers, i do not think you are necessarily doing human subjects  
research, but you could be.  If you stick to describing the blogs and  
the interactions of text and what that means about the people that  
create them that is likely not, but when you talk about an individual  
creator doing things in the world, then you are.  it is the difference  
between talking about the system or society versus talking about the  
person.   You can use documentary evidence still in researching  
subjects without creating a human subject, at least that is the way  
most irb materials read.  documentary materials or data already  
collected and collated by someone else is exempt.

>