The
White Paper Archive
The International Association of Qualitative
Inquiry is committed to challenging the rationale and practice
of federal and administrative oversight on qualitative research
enforced by Institute Review Boards (IRB). To do that, we aim
to create a platform and venue for qualitative scholars to discuss,
debate and engage with these issues. To generate lively and aggressive
dialogues on IRB, we believe it is important that qualitative
researchers not only interrogate the IRB oversight with their
works, but also get involved in the decision-making process of
IRB review, and actively assume administrative roles in the practice
of campus IRB review. By sharing our experience and practice in
challenging IRB oversight, it is hoped that an activist approach
to fight against the IRB could be discussed and examined.
This archive consists of a series of
statements on how qualitative researchers challenge IRB review
procedures by setting up departmental review panels that hold
high standards of ethical codes in dealing with human subjects
while avoiding the pressure created by many IRB guidelines. We
hope the community of IAQI would find these information helpful.
Documents of Human Subject Review Committee, College
of Communications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
* Routing of Application for Research
Involving Human Subjects at the College of Communications, UIUC.
This is a graph that illustrates how researchers could decide
what level of IRB oversight their research might go through. Click
here to download
* The Exclusion of Oral History from
IRB Review.
This is an additional text that helps researchers understand what
types of research might be completely excluded from IRB review.
Before filing for IRB approval, researchers might consider if
their research falls under the federal definition of regulable
research as "generalizable knowledge" so that no IRB oversight
would be necessary for their research at all.Click
here to download
* Categories of Research for Expedited
Review.
This is a text that describes the categories of research that
could reviewed by an IRB body in an expedited process. Also available
on UIUC IRB website.Click
here to download
* Categories of Research for Exempt Review.
This is a text that describes the categories of research that
could be exempted from IRB review. Also available on UIUC IRB
website.Click
here to download
*ICR / College of Communications IRB
Form.
This is the form for researchers to file IRB application at department
level.Click here to download