[URBANTH-L]ethnography and IRB outside of academia

[Katrin Anacker]

Ben:

I saw your e-mail several weeks ago and meant to answer it -- sorry 
about the delay. I am currently affiliated with a research institute 
under the roof of a university. I am working on a project with a 
non-profit organization which is not regulated by/affiliated with an 
IRB. I applied for IRB approval of the project and the collaborator 
of the non-profit organization was asked to take the IRB 
certification exam. When he does this our research protocol will be 
reviewed by the IRB.

Would it help to work with a collaborator from a university or would 
this collaboration make the project more complicated?

Katrin

At 03:07 PM 8/26/2008, chesluk at ix.netcom.com wrote:
>Dear fellow urbanists,
>
>Several weeks ago I wrote in asking for help or advice from anyone 
>working outside of academia who'd had experience getting IRB 
>approval for ethnographic research. I also promised to share the 
>fruits of my request, so, here goes: Unfortunately, there are no 
>easy answers. The AAA assures me they plan to look into this at some 
>time in the near future. Several respondents suggested that my 
>organization (the American Board of Internal Medicine) start its own 
>IRB. One person let me know they had success working with a private 
>IRB (such as the Essex or New England IRB) on an ethnographic study, 
>though this took quite a bit of work on both sides. In short: there 
>seems to be no straightforward approach to getting IRB approval for 
>ethnographic research outside of academia.
>
>I remain open to learning more from fellow researchers' experiences, 
>and if I learn something new of value I will pass it along to the group.
>
>Best,
>Ben Chesluk
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>URBANTH-L mailing list
>URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
>http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l

Katrin B. Anacker, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech
Co-Editor Housing Policy Debate
e. HousingPolicyDebate at vt.edu
Suite 100
1021 Prince St.
Alexandria, VA 22314
e. kanacker at vt.edu
e. anacker.2 at osu.edu
ph. 703.838.8320
fx. 703.518.8009
www.mi.vt.edu