[DG: Teaching & Learning] Learning Activities Investigation: Adventures with Human Subjects Research

[Ken Masters]

Hi All

Just to support what Robin says - the need for consent forms for any
research with humans, including interviews and focus groups, is now
becoming standard (and if your institution has a medical/health sciences
faculty, then the chances are that it's moving even faster, as much of
the impetus stems from the medical concept of 'informed consent').  More
and more journals (e.g. "Medical Education") are refusing to publish
papers unless the author states explicitly that consent was given; some
want the author to cite the specific reference number so that it can be
verified.

Generally, it's not difficult to get approval for research involving
interviews, as it's classified as "non-invasive" (or an equivalent -
i.e. as opposed to injecting something into someone).  Although it's
initially a pain, the forms do frequently help researchers to focus on
the core of what they want the users to do, why they want them to do it,
and how they intend to analyse and ultimately use the results, so it's a
pretty valuable process.

It also serves as protection for the researcher - you'll be surprised at
the number of people who give consent to be part of research, and then
forget that they did.  I have had this experience myself - fortunately,
I still had the original consent form signed by the subject, so was able
to proceed; otherwise, I would have run the risk of having my entire PhD
rejected.

Regards

Ken

---------------------------
Ken Masters
IT Health Education
http://www.ithealthed.com
____/\/********\/\____

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [DG: Teaching & Learning] Learning Activities
> Investigation: Adventures with Human Subjects Research
> From: Robin Hill <hill at uwyo.edu>
> Date: Mon, October 05, 2009 11:13 pm
> To: Keli Sato Amann <kamann at stanford.edu>
> Cc: sakai-user <sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>, pedagogy
> <pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org>, sakai-ux
> <sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org>
>
>
> In anticipation of these upcoming discussions, I urge all of us to
> contact our Institutional Review Boards for clearance regarding this
> research.
>
> My university adopted stricter guidlines just a couple of weeks ago(!),
> and I was surprised to find this project classified as Expedited (but
> not Exempt) research, which mandates that I complete the CITI
> certification and get consent forms before I conduct interviews.
>
> I'm in the process of meeting those requirements right now, but they are
> not trivial, and I'm glad that I filed our eleven-point proposal as soon
> as I did, giving time for a revision.  I will share my text for the
> proposal with anyone interested, if it helps you; it's mostly taken from
> the web pages written by Keli and Jackie.  (You'll have to do the CITI
> modules on your own!)
>
>
> kamann at stanford.edu wrote:
> > Hello Thanks again to those who came to the Kickoff meeting. The
> > follow up meetings will be one of two types
> >
> > 1) End User Interviewer meeting: Tues 10/6 and 10/14, 9 AM Pacific
> > (-7 GMT) If you are interested in conducting end-user interviews (aka
> > contextual inquiries) on your campus, please come to at least one of
> > the next two meetings October 6 and October 14, both if you can...
>
>
> --
>    Robin Hill, Ph.D.       hill at uwyo.edu       307-766-5499
>    Instructional Computing Services            http://www.uwyo.edu/ctl
>    Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning   University of Wyoming
>
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