Talk:Institutional Review Board
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[edit] "Problems with IRB review of social science" section
The "problem" of IRB review of behavioral and social science research is not necessarily a bad fit. The most common complaint from anthropologists (the discipline of ethnography) is that the IRB membership is too biomedically oriented, doesn't understand the method, and cannot provide appropriate review. At institutions where behavioral and social science research is common, there are usually IRBs that focus exclusively on reviewing such research. Both the Belmont Report and The Common Rule were intended to accomodate behavioral and social science research (evidenced by the Exemption categories and the Expedited review procedures).
The "problem" of IRB review tends to be with humanistic research (e.g., oral history), fields like journalism, and similar "gray area" activities (e.g., program evaluation in library sciences). From my experience, complaints in this area get voiced when someone in the humanities is employing some part of ethnographic methods without much knowledge of the ethics of the discipline they are borrowing from or the institutional requirement of ethical review. The regulations were not written with the humanities in mind, and it is often difficult to figure out how to handle projects that overlap the humanities and social sciences.
Aldmatthew 16:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
