[Air-L] IRB Exemption and Terms of Service - Reddit.com

[Peter Gloviczki]

Dear Charles,

Thanks for writing. This sounds like an interesting project. My first
advice would be to inquire with the IRB at your institution. If I were
you, I would call or email them and discuss your project. In my
experiences at the University of Minnesota, I found that the IRB was
very helpful and good at explaining their guidelines. I have heard
stories about IRB's at other institutions, though, so I suspect that
your best bet may be to approach your IRB and ask for their help about
how to best proceed. Hope this helps, Peter

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Charles Tong <charles.t.tong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello AoIR,
>
> My name is Charles Tong and I currently working on my undergraduate
> thesis in Sociology. Specifically, I am trying to construct a social
> network based on reddit.com by data-mining posts and comments from day
> to day. I am specifically looking to identify how consistent influence
> and power is created on the website. I hope to do this by constructing
> multiple networks from day to day of specific sub-forums and
> differentiating between those who are one-time stars and consistent
> stars. Then I will perform a content analysis of certain influential
> posts to determine what makes someone consistently powerful or not and
> in what ways they are influential.
>
> Unfortunately, I am unsure of how this will pass under IRB exemption.
> I am hoping that anyone on the AoIR mailing list may have some insight
> that may help. I have attempted to e-mail and get in contact with the
> website numerous times, but each time, they have not responded. I
> understand that I will have to send reddit.com’s user agreement.
>
> The user agreement states the following:
> “You may not in any way make commercial or other unauthorized use, by
> publication, re-transmission, distribution, performance, caching, or
> otherwise, of material obtained through the Website, including without
> limitation the Assets or Website Content, except as permitted by the
> Copyright Act or other law or as expressly permitted in writing by
> this Agreement, Service Provider or the Website.”
>
> I was wondering if anyone knows how to approach this specific issue. I
> understand that Fair Use might permit this research under the
> Copyright Act, but I am not sure of its nature.
>
> Thank you very much in advance for your help. Let me know if any
> additional information should be provided.
>
> Best Regards,
> Charles Tong
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-- 
Peter Joseph Gloviczki, Ph.D.
http://petergloviczki.com