Wikipedia talk:Subject Recruitment Approvals Group/Requests/InputInit

Confirmation of Institutional review board approval

(copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Research/Research)

Regarding contacting the Institutional review board to confirm approval by phone or email: Is anyone ever going to phone? Generally, disclosing email addresses on web pages is discouraged due to harvesting by spam-bots; will researchers disclose their email? How will the SRAG know that they are calling the cited institution, and not the researcher's mate Steve? And why is IRB approval needed by academics (in the US) and not, say, corporate researchers? Josh Parris 14:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

As you can see from the IRB article, their approval is needed for human subjects research, to ensure that the research does no harm to the subject. For the most part, the kinds of research I'm familiar with about Wikipedia are granted exempt status, indicating that the study does not need further IRB oversight, but it's up to the IRB to determine this. To my knowledge, IRB's exist only in academic institutions (somebody out there correct me if I'm wrong). -- PiperNigrum ^(hail|scan) 20:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• Whose problem is it if the IRB hasn't approved their research? Surely the researcher? I'm just wondering why academics funded by the US government have an extra hurdle to jump than the other researchers this proposal covers. Why do we care about IRB approval, surely the SRAG will individually assess each study on its merits? Josh Parris 08:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
  • In academia, in the US, you can't publish without gaining IRB approval before performing a study. If researchers require IRB approval and don't have it, I can't see why they should be approved to start recruiting. This IRB approval will be another piece of information that concerned Wikipedians can use to determine if a study should be accommodated by Wikipedia and its editors. --EpochFail^(talk|work) 16:45, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
• Regarding contacting the Institutional review board to confirm approval by phone or email: Is anyone ever going to phone? Generally, disclosing email addresses on web pages is discouraged due to harvesting by spam-bots; will researchers disclose their email? How will the SRAG know that they are calling the cited institution, and not the researcher's mate Steve? Josh Parris 08:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Most IRBs will have their contact information listed publicly already. If you don't think you are calling the listed institution, you'd be able to easily find their phone number yourself through their website or a third party like the institution they are part of. (See the University of Minnesota's IRB site) --EpochFail^(talk|work) 16:45, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so why ask for IRB contact details if it's easy to look them up and that avoids impersonation? Josh Parris 08:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Because we need to know which IRB to contact. Each institution has their own. --EpochFail^(talk|work) 20:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

What's special about US researchers?

Why are researchers from Australia not required to provide IRB details? Because their funding doesn't demand it. So why demand it of US researchers? Is the role of the IRB to protect the funders of research from fallout from unethical studies, or to reassure the participants that they're not going to be harmed - do the funders indemnify researchers who have IRB approval?

I think I want to know: why should Wikipedia regard US academic researchers as different to those from non-profits, corporates or other countries? Josh Parris 08:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Excluding, of course, the fact that most academic institutions have an IRB and run all research past it. Josh Parris 09:24, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

A little web searching resulted in this Human Research Ethics Office at the University of Western Australia, and the Human Research Ethics Committee at Victoria University which appears to serve the same purpose as an IRB. -- PiperNigrum ^(hail|scan) 16:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea why I fixated on that. Letting it go and backing away. Note: I was already aware that IRBs exist outside of the US. It's reasonable to ask for this approval.

A question on procedure: does one ask here, or at one's IRB, for approval first? Josh Parris 01:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Ultimately, to actually do the research, you will need permission from both. Whether you get approval from the IRB first and then apply on Wikipedia, or you ask both the IRB and Wikipedia at the same time and update the application with IRB information once that goes through, which can sometimes take a week or two, it shouldn't matter. Either way, even if Wikipedia approval occurs before IRB, we wouldn't go ahead with recruitment until the IRB approval comes in. -- PiperNigrum ^(hail|scan) 16:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll toss in a "pending" option then. Josh Parris 05:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Recruitment message text

I'd like to specify that researchers include the whole lot, boilerplate and all, because I can imagine research that might not want to disclose that it's authorized research - in which case it ought not have the boilerplate. Josh Parris 09:50, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Can't they just specify in the application that they'd like to make the posting without the boilerplate? Also, that wouldn't stop the subjects from finding out that their recruitment was authorized by SRAG since SubjectRecruitmentBot would be doing the postings. --EpochFail^(talk|work) 20:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. Scratch that. Josh Parris 05:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

User Sample Criteria

I'm not sure I understand the reasoning of making it a heading and having "Publication of results" inside the section. It seems to me that making "User Sample Criteria" a heading clutters the table of contents on Wikipedia:Subject Recruitment Approvals Group/Requests. Could someone explain the usefulness of this change? --EpochFail^(talk|work) 20:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I see what it is. On Wikipedia:WikiProject Research/Recruit2, there's a link for "this study's selection criteria", which uses the #anchor capability that Wiki headings give. There has to be a better way to accomplish this, though. -- PiperNigrum ^(hail|scan) 03:38, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

... and there is. Use {{visible anchor}} instead of a section. -- PiperNigrum ^(hail|scan) 22:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Hey, you guys aren't as stupid as I look! Josh Parris 05:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

User sampling

I think it's necessary for the researcher to describe how their sample will be generated; i.e. who have they suckered into writing a bot to do their sampling, or are they going to do it by hand, and how are they going to make it random if they do that, etc. Josh Parris 05:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

More emphasis on publication

I understand that publication has complexities surrounding it, but the value to the community is in getting the results back. Is it reasonable to ask for something in between an abstract (which is normally enough to tell you that you have to read the actual paper to find out what you want to know) and a full-blown paper as a deliverable; would that put conference organizer's noses out of joint? Josh Parris 05:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

In other thoughts: what about the publication of (anonymised) raw data? Josh Parris 05:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Separate discussions for sampling and the study

There ought to be separate discussion areas for the sampling and for the study. The sampling discussion would discuss how many people would need to be recruited to garner the participant rate requested. The study discussion would look at the merits of the study, its recruitment message, etc. Josh Parris 04:15, 27 December 2009 (UTC)