[Air-L] question about IRB and content analysis of mailing list

[Dhanaraj Thakur]

hey all,

this might have come up before so pardon me if this is repetitive.

I am interested in doing a content analysis of texts within an email 
archive. and I was wondering how to deal with IRB issues in this case.
specifically, I am focusing on the text and not the authors. if I did 
need informed consent its seems impractical to get given the number 
of participants (several hundred) and age (over 5 years) of some of 
the emails. what should I do in that case?
also, what would be the approach if the archive is available publicly 
or if its private?
finally, are there any other major IRB requirements that I should 
consider in this type of exercise?

thanks
Dhanaraj



Dhanaraj Thakur
Ph.D. Student
School of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology