Internet-Based Research - SBE

The internet can be used as a research tool or as the object of a study. Which of the following examples best describes an investigator using the internet as a research tool?

An investigator uses his Facebook wall to post a URL link to a survey he is hosting on SurveyMonkey.

Which scenario best describes a researcher making thoughtful considerations in the design of their informed consent process on an online study?

The researcher will ask for a waiver to document informed consent and instead will have a live button that reads, "If you agree to be in this study click below to begin."

Which of the following examples of using the internet to conduct research meets the federal definition of research with human subjects?

Conducting an on-line focus group with cancer survivors to determine familial support systems. The researcher also invites subjects' significant others to be a part of the focus group.

Which of the following methods could be considered a "best practice" in terms of informing respondents how their answers to an on-line survey about personal information will be protected?

The investigator uses the informed consent process to explain how respondent data will be transmitted from the website to his encrypted database without ever recording respondents' IP addresses, but explains that on the internet confidentiality cannot be absolutely guaranteed.

Revelations about the Facebook Emotional Contagion study highlights what key ethical consideration to conducting research using social media?

Users of social media sites, like Facebook, may not fully understand all of the terms to which they are agreeing to when accepting a sites' terms of use.