Questions from a feral researcher*

I’m about to run a couple of online surveys  and experiments and would like to include the results in some papers I’m submitting to a peer-reviewed journal. Trouble is, I’m not hooked up to a university and don’t wish to be for this work. So I’m wondering how I deal with the ethics of my study.

I know how to write an ethics statement – so I’m not looking for advice on what to put in it. Rather, I’m seeking advice on dealing with the ethics approval process, outside an academic institution.

I need to do the following:

1) Make sure I’m treating my participants fairly.

2) Make sure my strategy passes muster with the journal reviewers.

I was rather hoping I can assess ethics independently, just as I assess risk – in other words, write my own ethics statement and strive to go through all the necessary steps to ensure my participants are treated fairly. In this statement, I can write down my thought processes,  just as I would in a formal ‘method statement’ for, say, the installation of a new exhibit.

Will that suffice? Of course, I’d also like to show my ethics statement to a fellow experimenter whose opinion I trust. In other words, use them as my sounding board, just as a prospective university researcher might use their university ethics committee. But I have a feeling most associates working in academia would be loathe to give an opinion I can reference, without going through the proper channels.

Am I completely stymied here, or is there a simple solution? Is there an ethics board for independent researchers? If so, who runs it?

If you have any advice on this, I’d be really grateful to hear from you, either in the comments below or email:
hello [at] sarahangliss [dot] com

* Feral researcher: A lovely term I picked up from Dougald Hine, School of Everything, to describe people like me who are interested in academic enquiry but don’t really fit in academia.

14 March 2010

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tags: ethics