I completely agree with the points raised here. At my university when I presented my IRB proposal for research on Conflict and Cooperation within World of Warcraft, most of the people on the IRB board did not have a clue about how and what digital MMORPGs were, much less how they operated. I spent 3 months going through multiple revisions before I was able to get the project passed (since it involved on-line interview data). One of my graduate students has written about this problem with un-informed IRBs. To their credit they did relax the stiff requirements and it is easier for my students to get their projects through the board, but, we had to work to help them develop guidelines in the interim. ********************************************* Talmadge Wright Dept. of Sociology Loyola University Chicago 6525 N. Sheridan Rd. Chicago, IL 60626 (773) 508-3451 >>> "Andrew A. Beveridge" 09/26/11 9:40 AM >>> You may or may not know this, but the so-called "common rule" is being revised and comments are due by mid-October. I will send info in, but the very nature of IRB's who have unreviewed power to cause serious issues with many research projects, needs to be scaled way, way back. Andy On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 10:37 AM, Mary L. Gray wrote: > hey all, > > the Association of Internet Researchers (www.aoir.org) has an extensive lit review/bib of the relevant stuff on the relationship between IRB policies and new media research. There are a few folks (including myself) who are looking at the role IRBs play in shifting methodological and analytical frameworks when it comes to qualitative human subjects research (I focus on the intersections of digital media and "vulnerable subjects" like LGBT-identifying youth...I'd be happy to send those interested a piece about that). > > But, beyond Paul DiMaggio's call for a CITASA statement, I hope that ASA (like the American Anthro Association) will submit comments to the OHRP (the folks currently soliciting input on revisions of the federal guidelines). Anthropologists and sociologists need to use the full weight of their/our disciplinary associations if ethnographers stand any chance of intervening in what's increasingly a regulatory infrastructure for patentable research (primarily in the biomedical and engineering sciences) rather than an ethics review for humanistic social sciences. > > Best, > mary > _______________________ > On sabbatical until January 9, 2012 > > Mary L. Gray, Ph.D. > Associate Professor > Communication and Culture > Affiliate Faculty, Gender Studies > Adjunct Faculty, American Studies > Adjunct Faculty, Anthropology > Indiana University > 800 E. 3rd Street > Bloomington, IN 47405 > > Email: mLg@indiana.edu > URL: www.indiana.edu/~qcentral > Phone: 812-855-4379 > Fax: 812-855-6014 > > > BLOG for "Out in the Country, Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America" (NYU Press 2009) > @ http://queercountry.fromthesquare.org/ > > > On Sep 26, 2011, at 10:25 AM, dimaggio wrote: > >> This is a really important issue. I am getting the impression that most IRBs are clueless about research using new media. There are times when this makes life easy for researchers, but also times (like this one) when it makes it unnecessarily difficult. It reminds of some of the problems that ethnographers had with IRBs in the 1980s and 1990s. Two institutional changes helped at many universities (though I realize that there are still problems at others). One was insuring that IRBs included ethnographers so that there was someone present for the discussions who understood the method, its challenges and established practice. A second was for IRB committees that included anthropologists or sociologists who did ethnography to write and discuss policy statements for dealing with ethnographic research -- essentially establishing expectations and guidelines. These may be useful longer-run strategies -- i.e. lobbying appointing authorities to include scholars who do web-based research on IRBs and then producing guidelines for evaluation of web-based projects -- for us as well. In the short run, I wonder if CITASA might consider drafting a document that could be useful to IRBs looking for guidance in this area? >> >> On 9/26/2011 10:10 AM, Shelia Cotten wrote: >>> Hi everyone. For my grad Survey Research course this semester, I'm planning to have my students do a web-based survey to be disseminated via social media. My IRB is giving us major issues with this. We had planned to use our social networks to disseminate the survey (in part this is a methodological experiment too) - so post on our Facebook walls, email people, post on listservs, and tweet it. >>> >>> Our IRB doesn't want us to do anything other than email people basically. This seems so archaic given the proliferation of social media. If we are to use listservs, we have to get permission from each one and provide a letter to the IRB from each one. >>> >>> Thoughts, suggestions, etc. for helping us deal with this issue? >>> >>> Thanks in advance for any help you can provide! If you want to email me directly at cotten@uab.edu, I will be glad to post a summary of the responses. >>> >>> Shelia >>> ******************************************* >>> Shelia R. Cotten, PhD >>> Associate Professor >>> Department of Sociology >>> UAB >>> 205-934-8678 >>> cotten@uab.edu >>> _______________________________________________ >>> CITASA mailing list >>> CITASA@list.citasa.org >>> http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CITASA mailing list >> CITASA@list.citasa.org >> http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org > > > _______________________________________________ > CITASA mailing list > CITASA@list.citasa.org > http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org > -- President, Social Explorer, Inc 50 Merriam Ave Bronxville, NY 10708 Phone 1-888-636-1118 Mobile 914-522-4487 FAX 1-888-442-1117 andy@socialexplorer.com www.socialexplorer.com Become a fan on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-Explorer/110325499019530 Follow us on Twitter @socialexplorer Prof of Sociology Queens College and Grad Ctr CUNY Chair Queens College Sociology Dept Office: 718-997-2852 Email: andrew.beveridge@qc.cuny.edu 233D Powdermaker Hall 65-30 Kissena Blvd Flushing, NY 11367-1597 _______________________________________________ CITASA mailing list CITASA@list.citasa.org http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org