University of Utah Plans Symposium on IRB Policy

On March 20 and 21, the University of Utah Political Science Department will host a symposium, Field Research and US Institutional Review Board Policy.

I will give the keynote address, "'The Freedoms We are Committed to Protect': Political Science, Academic Freedom, and Institutional Review Boards in Historical Perspective."

NRC Report: Where's the Freedom?

My biggest disappointment with the new NRC report is its silence on the question of academic and personal freedom.

NRC Report: Assess Risk Empirically

One theme running throughout the NRC report is the need to replace the worthless gut reactions decried by Ezekiel Emanuel with a system that would base its judgments on the latest empirical evidence. But the report does not present a clear set of reforms that would effect this change without scrapping the current system of local IRB review.

NRC Report: Liberate Oral History

For historians, the most exciting passage in the new National Research Council report—the passage that had me cheering out loud—is the recommendation that the Common Rule be amended to explicitly exclude historical interviews, as well as other forms of information gathering that do not constitute “human-subjects research specifically in the biomedical, behavioral, and social sciences.”

National Research Council Issues IRB Report

The National Research Council has issued its long awaited report, Proposed Revisions to the Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects in the Behavioral and Social Sciences.

[National Research Council. Committee on Revisions to the Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects in Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Proposed Revisions to the Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects in the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2014.]

Happy New Year, National Academy of Sciences!

As longtime readers of this blog will know, I used to begin each year by mocking OHRP for failing to issue "a lot of examples and will give more guidance on how to make the decision on what is research and what is not" by the end of 2007, as promised by a former director. That trope got a bit old after a few years, and I didn't recycle it in 2013.

I will note that the National Academy of Sciences pledged to issue a summary of its March 2013 workshop "in summer 2013" and that "the study report will be issued in early winter 2013."

Anyone seen either of those?

CU-Boulder Retracts IRB Claim

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Mark Miller, the University of Colorado at Boulder spokesman who had earlier suggested that professors should consult the IRB before teaching controversial subjects, has retracted that suggestion.

[Peter Schmidt, “U. of Colorado’s Response to a Gritty Lecture Worries Sociologists,” Chronicle of Higher Education, December 17, 2013. http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-Colorados-Response-to-a/143653/. (gated)]

CU-Boulder Tells Faculty to Consult IRB Before Teaching

A spokesman for the University of Colorado at Boulder has recommended that university faculty consult the IRB before teaching.

The comment concerns sociology professor Patti Adler's announcement that she plans to retire early rather than risk being fired for classroom teaching that might make students uncomfortable.

[Scott Jaschik, “Tenured Professor at Boulder Says She Is Being Forced out over Lecture on Prostitution," Inside Higher Ed, December 16, 2013. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/16/tenured-professor-boulder-says-she-being-forced-out-over-lecture-prostitution.]

Emmerich on Schrag, Stark, and van den Hoonaard

Nathan Emmerich of Queen's University, UK, reviews Ethical Imperialism, Behind Closed Doors, and The Seduction of Ethics for Research Ethics.

[Emmerich, Nathan. “Between the Accountable and the Auditable: Ethics and Ethical Governance in the Social Sciences.” Research Ethics 9, no. 4 (December 2013): 175–186. doi:10.1177/1747016113510654.]

Emmerich is particularly frustrated by the lack of accountability of research ethics committees:

"The review process renders research accountable whilst, at the same time, erasing any trace of its own accountability (Stark: 73) or, we might say, its own status as an ethical endeavour . . .

"How systems of governance should themselves be held responsible − to researchers, to research participants, and to society as a whole − remains uninterrogated by applied ethical thinking."

Interview by Washington Monthly - Ten Miles Square

Rachel Cohen interviewed me for Ten Miles Square, a Washington Monthly blog.

I guess in this case the ten miles square still includes Arlington.

Cohen, Rachel. “What Are Institutional Review Boards and Why Should We Care? An Interview with Zach Schrag.” The Washington Monthly - Ten Miles Square, November 1, 2013. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2013/11/what_are_institutional_review047608.php?