CITI Internet-Based Research SBE

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."

Summary

Though the internet has much to offer researchers, researchers using it have several issues to consider before designing an online research study. Some of these issues include user expectations about the privacy of their information, informed consent processes, potential for re-identification of collected data, and that there are no absolute guarantees to ensure the confidentiality of personally identifiable information. Navigating these issues becomes much more intricate and complex when adding the fluid nature of the online world and the rapid development of new internet technologies into the equation. It is for these reasons that experts in the field of internet research ethics have described internet-based research as a "moving target."

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.

Which of the following on-line research strategies raises the most concerns regarding the ethical principle of respecting the autonomy of research subjects and the corresponding federal regulations requiring informed consent?

A researcher proposes to join a moderated support group for cancer survivors posing as a survivor. She plans to insert comments to see how the members respond.

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.

Consent to participate in research is an ongoing process. Which of the following strategies would help ensure that participation in a survey about a sensitive personal topic remains voluntary throughout a study?

Designing the survey so that subjects are not forced to answer one question before going to the next.

To minimize potential risks of harm, a researcher conducting an on-line survey can:

Design the survey so that no direct or indirect identifiers are collected.

Researchers endeavoring to conduct an on-line study should consider that there are some potential risks of harm to subjects unique to internet-based research. One of these risks is:

Individuals may post private identifiable information about themselves on-line without intending it to be public and available to researchers.

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.

The internet as a research tool and as the object of study

The Internet As a Research Tool and As the Object of Study Researchers can use the internet to conduct research with human subjects in two ways. They can: Use the internet as a research tool Use the internet as the environment to study human behavior Researchers may use the internet to help them conduct their studies. Examples of internet research tools include... Researchers may use the internet as a research setting in which they merely observe people's online behavior, often requiring little or no interaction with subjects. Examples of internet research environments include... Researchers also can use computer programs to extract information from people's profiles on social networking websites or from MMORPGs. This method of data collection is known as "data scraping." Although data scraping may provide researchers a wealth of useful data with little effort, it presents several ethical issues that require consideration regarding informed consent, data security, and privacy.