Dear Jade. Thank you for your question. IRB approval is required in research that will involve humans or animals. The aim in such situations is to ensure that the study protocol is consistent with the ethical and human code, and no harm will be imposed. Also, to ensure that the method and the design of the research are consistent with the research questions and can be achieved. Also, issues about confidentiality, consent of participants, storage of data, freedom of participants to withdraw, explanation of the project to participants, and that there are no conflicts of interest are all well addressed as per the research institutes and universities code. The IRB approval also indicates, even indirectly, that there are facilities to conduct such methods in the institute, and there is a peer-review process has been carried out by the IRB committee for the research application. Thus, IRB approval aim at protecting the participants, protecting the community, ensuring that the research is doing no harm and useful, and at the same time protecting the rights of the researchers.

Moreover, the IRB is a requirement by most journals for publishing your research. So if the authors fail to present the IRB approval body name, date and number, most likely, the study will not be published. However, some research does not need IRB approval, for example, assessing the quality and accuracy of online videos do not cause any harm to anyone and the videos are a public domain. However, not every research on social media does not need ethical approval. This is an exciting and growing area, and we are currently identifying areas of research in social media that should receive ethical approval. I hope this answers your question and is helpful to you.

Best regards, Prof S. Azer

Dear Jade. Thank you for your question. IRB approval is required in research that will involve humans or animals. The aim in such situations is to ensure that the study protocol is consistent with the ethical and human code, and no harm will be imposed. Also, to ensure that the method and the design of the research are consistent with the research questions and can be achieved. Also, issues about confidentiality, consent of participants, storage of data, freedom of participants to withdraw, explanation of the project to participants, and that there are no conflicts of interest are all well addressed as per the research institutes and universities code. The IRB approval also indicates, even indirectly, that there are facilities to conduct such methods in the institute, and there is a peer-review process has been carried out by the IRB committee for the research application. Thus, IRB approval aim at protecting the participants, protecting the community, ensuring that the research is doing no harm and useful, and at the same time protecting the rights of the researchers.

Moreover, the IRB is a requirement by most journals for publishing your research. So if the authors fail to present the IRB approval body name, date and number, most likely, the study will not be published. However, some research does not need IRB approval, for example, assessing the quality and accuracy of online videos do not cause any harm to anyone and the videos are a public domain. However, not every research on social media does not need ethical approval. This is an exciting and growing area, and we are currently identifying areas of research in social media that should receive ethical approval. I hope this answers your question and is helpful to you.

Best regards, Prof S. Azer

Dr. Azer explained the process very well. And yes, you need IRB approval even if you graduated and do not have any affiliation. So, where will you get IRB? You will apply to the IRB board where you collect data. For example, if you collect data from a school, you need to apply city’s ISD

Hi Jade,

Currently independent researcher in the social sciences. I use action research and other participatory approaches with working and studying adults that throw up all kinds of potential ethical issues that need to be incorporated into study design. Journals in my field do not typically ask for IRB approval, even if universities do.

In my experience the answer as to whether it needed is "it depends" and "it's debatable" for reasons this article discusses:

Article The Case Against Ethics Review in the Social Sciences

If you have someone at a university or other organization you can talk to, maybe you could start there. Practically speaking there are some self-assessment tools available to help you answer the IRB question:

• It will differ for you in the States, but in Europe we have the Horizon 2020 self assessment: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/ethics/h2020_hi_ethics-self-assess_en.pdf
• I have found a similar tool in the US offered by IntegReview IRB https://integreview.com/. I contacted them and they sent a price list and a checklist for meeting exemption criteria.

Personal experience: I have a project with a group that could potentially meet the criteria for being vulnerable. Since I'm not sure, I'm going to seek out IRB approval (probably by seeking out a collaborator with institutional support) to make sure I'm not unknowingly out of line.

Hope this is useful and curious to see what others have to say.

Thank you! Your responses have provided clarity.

Samy Azer Ryan Armstrong Mehmet Akif Karaman