January 2024 IRB Review Newsletter

January 2024

The IRB Review

A compilation of information, announcements, & updates for UK Institutional Review Board (IRB) members, research investigators, & others involved with human subject research.

New resources for the New Year: A Survey Research webpage is available to UKY researchers with guidance and tools for conducting survey research. The new webpage offers a mix of previously developed tools like the Survey Consent Templates and new guidance like the Strategies for Preventing & Identifying Online Survey Fraud.

Survey Research Webpage

For one week in January of 2012 in Human Research History, researchers from Facebook manipulated the news feed of almost 700,000 uninformed FB users. Some users saw positive news posts while others saw more negative news posts. The purpose of the Facebook Emotional Contagion Study was to measure the spread of emotions across the social media platform.

At the end of the week, researchers analyzed emotions expressed in user status updates and published their findings in the National Academy of Science. They were genuinely surprised when the research community expressed concern that users were not informed a study was being done nor informed their emotions were being analyzed. The study initiated discussion on whether a Terms of Use agreement signifies informed consent. Another discussion emerged regarding the "reasonable expectations of privacy" of users on social media platforms.

What research procedure was employed during the Facebook Emotional Contagion Study?

Analysis of publicly available data
Analysis of private information
Research interaction
Research intervention

***Keep Reading for the Answer***

Upcoming ORI Office Hours

Thursday, January 18, 1:00pm - 2:00 pm

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Click Here for All Office Hours Dates/Times

The Office of Research Integrity offers consultations by phone, Zoom, or in-person. Consultations are offered for studies in development (with or without an E-IRB submission) as well as approved research projects.

Click Here to Request a Consult

Answer to the Trivia Question:

The Correct Answer Is:

A Research Intervention. Subpart A of 45 CFR Part 46 defines a research intervention as “both physical procedures… and manipulations of the subject or the subject’s environment that are performed for research purposes.” Facebook researchers manipulated news feeds to measure the emotional reaction of users indicating that a research intervention took place without obtaining permission from users.

Why It Is Unclear Whether Public/Private Information Was Analyzed:

Subpart A of 45 CFR Part 46 defines private information as “information about behavior that occurs in a context in which an individual can reasonably expect that no observation or recording is taking place, and information that has been provided for specific purposes by an individual and that the individual can reasonably expect will not be made public.” Since the federal regulations do not clearly define the reasonable expectations of an individual, it is difficult to say with certainty whether the data collected by Facebook researchers is public or private. This ambiguity in the federal regulations is what drives the discussion between researchers regarding the reasonable expectations of user privacy on social media platforms.