OSEA Statement on Ethics

Ethics of Research with Human Subjects and the IRB Institutional Review Board

OSEA Ethics
OSEA supports and seeks to abide by the AAA American Anthropological Association Code of Ethics for ethnographical research. Participants in OSEA Programs are encouraged to read this Code prior to program initiation.

The Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology is an independent non-degree school that provides courses at the undergraduate and graduate level.  OSEA does not receive federal support for its programs nor has any partnership, association, affiliation, or instititutional relationship with any US federally funded institution of higher education. 

Nonetheless, OSEA requires that all students in research practicum programs learn about Human Subjects Review (HSR) issues, research ethics, and Institutional Review Board (IRB) processes. This information is imparted in OSEA research methods and practicum courses.

Any graduate student or post-doctoral participant in an OSEA program who wishes to conduct original research that produces generalizable knowledge that requires IRB approval from their home institution or from the foundations or organizations that provides funding, must seek to comply with their ethical, legal and institutional requirements with their home institution. The person is solely and wholley responsible and obligated to pursue compliance of their obligations according to their individual circumstances and via their home institution.

As part of its educational program, OSEA has adopted and modified appropriately as its Human Subjects Review guidelines, the Indiana University statement on the exemption of student research from IRB/HSR (See below for pertinent passages from the statement and a link to the full statement on the IU website). OSEA has no affiliation, partnership, association or other institutional connection with Indiana University.

As is commonly held by a majority of institutions of higher education, research conducted within the context of regularly assigned coursework is considered eligible for exemption from HSR/IRB.  Furthermore such research is considered to be exempt if the research methods are (a) not invasive, intrusive or stressful in terms of either physical or psychological criteria; (b) do not involve vulnerable populations at risk; and (c) do not have the potential for placing either the student researcher or the subjects of research at more than a normal level of everyday risk that is common for even those who are not involved in the research process but share the same social and experiential contexts.

ELIGIBILITY FOR EXEMPTION:

OSEA educational experiences are based in seminar, workshop, forum, or practicum coursework.  Any and all research conducted by students in any OSEA program is realized for the explicit purpose of student training.  Practicum training exercises, including independent student research projects, are not considered research that leads to generalizable knowledge.  As such projects conducted in OSEA programs are categorically considered to be eligible for exemption from HSR/IRB.

OSEA staff and faculty expressly exclude and prohibit any student or participant in any OSEA program to:  (a) use physically or psychologically intrusive, invasive, harmful, deceitful, or stressful methods or research protocols; (b) conduct research with vulnerable populations at risk; and (c) conduct research in any situation or under any circumstances that involve any risk which is more than, or beyond, the normal, everyday, minimal potential of routine experience in the socio-cultural settings and contexts of the OSEA programs.  The OSEA faculty, including teaching and research staff, are involved in the evaluation of all student conducted research and determine whether or not a project is in compliance with the ethical and human subjects guidelines established by OSEA.

The research methodologies that student use in their practicum exercises are limited to non-intrusive methods and protocols, such as interviewing, observation, participation, focus group, structured questionnaires, surveys, elicitation of narratives, audio-visual, audio and photographic recordings, and study of publicly available documents and archival materials. Protocols involving biomedical, genetic, human tissue, or deception are prohibited by OSEA.

Research subjects are limited to consenting adults who are required to be informed of the risks involved in their participation in the student conducted research practicum.  In the case of minors their consent must attained as well as the consent of their parents or guardians and must be restricted to issues of learning, use, acquisition, and expression of linguistic or cultural competencies within settings that include the approval and or supervision of parents or guardians.  The regulated process of attaining consent from all participants is separately provided and includes the routine provision for the maintenance of subject anonymity although informed consent also grants all subjects their choice to reveal their identity.

All research materials created, collected or produced by student participants are to be kept in the institutional archives of OSEA. These materials are organized by the student or participant who submits materials in orignal and/or copy format using standardized procedures for the maintenance of anonymity in those cases where subjects have made this request.

In those cases in which a student participant does not comply with the ethical codes and standards of ethnographic research and of cultural anthropology as established by the American Anthropological Association or with the ethical standards and Human Subjects Review Guidelines established by OSEA, the student or participant will be immediately expelled from the program at the discretion of the Director and OSEA Staff without any further discussion and without any further obligation or responsibility on the part of OSEA or any of its institutional partners, including economic compensation for financial losses, reimbursement of fees, or legal repercussions.

OSEA teaching and research staff are responsible for screening individual research projects and making the initial determination as to whether the project may fall in the category of research as explained above.

If the OSEA teaching and research staff determines that a research project proposed to be conducted during OSEA training programs has the purpose of producing generalizable knowledge, may involve greater than minimal risk, or involves a vulnerable population, the project must be submitted to the researcher's home institution IRB and ethics policies in order to satisfy that institution's requirements for ethical review of research that is conducted under the jurisdiction of that federally funded institution.

As part of its educational program, OSEA has adopted and modified appropriately as its Human Subjects Review guidelines, the Indiana University statement on the exemption of student research from IRB/HSR (See below for pertinent passages from the statement and a link to the full statement on the IU website).

OSEA has no affiliation, partnership, association or other institutional connection with Indiana University.

Indiana University Statement on the Exemption of Student Practicum Based Research

As defined in CFR Title 45, Part 46 (Department of Health and Human Services policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects), "research" is a "systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge," and a "human subject" is "a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) conducting research obtains (1) data through intervention or interaction with the individual, or (2) identifiable private information." Since class work assignments are usually not intended to or likely to lead to generalizable results, the Human Subjects Committee (HSC) does not normally include these projects under its operational definition of research. Rather, they are viewed as practicum resources of teaching.

A. Student projects which meet the following criteria will not require review by the HSC. Research practica (usually in the form of course-related research projects and/or directed studies), the objective of which is to provide research experience for the student; and

➾ Which do not involve physically or psychologically invasive, intrusive, or stressful procedures; and

➾ Which, in the judgment of the instructor, do not have the potential for placing the subjects at more than minimal risk

➾ Which do not involve a vulnerable population at risk (e.g. children, pregnant women, prisoners) B. Student research, including classroom and independent study projects, theses and dissertations, that may place the subjects at more than minimal risk is subject to HSC review. In clinical courses, subjects will be considered to be at greater than minimal risk if the procedures used and/or the questions asked do not fall under what is construed as being ordinary practice. When the student researcher is also an AI/GA for the course from which the subjects will be recruited, the same concerns apply as are stated in the section titled Students as Subjects. Consideration should be given to the research setting when assessing risk.

 C. Special populations including pregnant women, fetuses, prisoners, mentally disabled, economically or educationally disadvantaged are considered vulnerable research subjects and, projects involving such subjects are subject to HSC review.

Related Links:

University at Albany, SUNY "Investigator's Handbook: Human Subjects Research and Institutional Review Board"

University at Albany, SUNY, IRB Forms

 http://www.research.indiana.edu/rschcomp/instruct.html.