In his PS contribution, Brian Calfano worries that the Montana postcard fiasco will lead IRBs to impede political science field experiments, especially at teaching institutions.
[Brian R. Calfano, “‘I’ Does Not Mean Infallible: Pushing Back against Institutional Review Board Overreach,” PS: Political Science & Politics 49, no. 02 (April 2016): 304–8, doi:10.1017/S1049096516000251.]
In her contribution to the PS symposium, Melissa Michelson argues that “real-world practitioners” will often know more about relevant ethics and law than will the members of an IRB.
[Melissa R. Michelson, “The Risk of Over-Reliance on the Institutional Review Board: An Approved Project Is Not Always an Ethical Project,” PS: Political Science & Politics 49, no. 02 (April 2016): 299–303, doi:10.1017/S104909651600024X.]
The first IRB related article in the April 2016 issue of PS, and the only one not formally part of the symposium on IRBs, is Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, “Encountering Your IRB 2.0: What Political Scientists Need to Know.” This essay is intended as an introduction to IRB issues for political scientists, and therefore presents material that will be familiar to readers of this blog.
In addition to this helpful introduction, Yanow and Schwartz-Shea make an interesting point about the scope of IRB review: on the one hand, it can be under inclusive, failing to cover serious ethical questions. On the other hand, mission creep continues apace, as universities impose restrictions not dictated by ethics or law.
[Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, “Encountering Your IRB 2.0: What Political Scientists Need to Know,” PS: Political Science & Politics 49, no. 02 (April 2016): 277–86, doi:10.1017/S1049096516000202.]
A/B testing is the comparison of two products by providing each, simultaneously, to two randomly selected groups. As Michelle Meyer notes, the practice is less ethically suspect than a common alternative: imposing a new product on all of one’s customers without first testing it.
A&B is an abbreviation for assault and battery. Depending on the jurisdiction, the two may be a single crime or distinct crimes, but everywhere A&B is unlawful.
Law professor James Grimmelmann has confused the two:
Suppose that Professor Cranium at Stonewall University wants to find out whether people bleed when hit in the head with bricks, but doesn’t want to bother with the pesky IRB and its concern for “safety” and “ethics.” So Cranium calls up a friend at Brickbook, which actually throws the bricks at people, and the two of them write a paper together describing the results. Professor Cranium has successfully laundered his research through Brickbook, cutting his own IRB out of the loop. This, I submit, is Not Good.
IRBs for everyone, or you get hit with a brick. I suggest that this parade of horribles is missing its elephant. Blame the IACUC?
Anyway, thanks for the link.
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