I'm based in Australia, and I will be conducting online interviews with people in both Australia and America. I must apply to my university's ethics committee and get approval from them to start my interviews in Australia. However, I am unsure if I need to undergo a similar process of getting ethics approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) in America, and which IRB I should be applying to, if needed, if I am to conduct interviews for people in America.
I am conducting the interviews online with people of interest in Maine, and I have read that the University of Southern Maine has a publicly accessible IRB that I can apply to. I am just wondering if that whole process is required.
Thanks!
It generally depends on the topic of your online interviews and if your participants are a vulnerable population (e.g., students, patients, elderly in a care home, prisoners, refugees). If the topic collects sensitive information this is an IRB flag. Go ahead and send an email to the chair of the Maine IRB and ask them to be sure. You want to get a formal answer from them because when you go to publish your research you can then say why you did not get IRB approval (if it was not required).
i agree with Katrina. you will need IRB review if you intend to publish. The choice not to review
should come from the IRB itself.
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