Although I agree with the second part of Marianne's argument that the an 
internet  discussion group is not necessarily the best sampling frame for a 
study, I disagree with the former argument about ethical approval.  In the 
UK there is no standard mechanism for assessing and granting ethical 
approval for using human subjects in 'social science' research.  Some 
universities may have ethic committees similar those in many universities 
in the United States, and the health services have their own local and 
regional ethics committees, but the latter focus on NHS patients and/or 
research on NHS premises.  Thus a research project selecting/recruiting 
professionals subscribing to an internet discussion group does not need 
ethical permission.  And I think that that is correct, ethic committees are 
there largely to protect those who cannot protect themselves, such as 
patients, pupils, etc., they are not there to judge the wider 
appropriateness of research (in the sense of censorship).  In the proposed 
study any of us is free to refuse participation in an email questionnaire.

A different is issue is whether the group would want to take a collective 
decision that recruiting research participants through this mailing list is 
a different question, a so-called netiquette questions, but not an ethical. 
  For example, the Medical Sociology Group of the British Sociological 
Association took a decision at an AGM that the membership list could not be 
made available to researcher (even if they themselves were medical 
sociologists and members of the group).


Edwin R. van Teijlingen
Lecturer in Public Health
Admission Selector and co-ordinator BSc Health Sciences
Department of Public Health
Medical School
University of Aberdeen
ABERDEEN   AB25 2ZD

tel: +44 (0) 1224 663123 ext 52491
fax: +44 (0) 1224 662994
email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/public_health

-----Original Message-----
From:	[log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:	29 July 1999 22:56
To:	[log in to unmask]
Cc:	Lesley Hobbs
Subject:	E-mail questionnaire

In a message dated 29/07/1999 16:37:41 GMT Daylight Time, 
[log in to unmask]
writes:

> would people find it acceptable to
>  receive a questionnaire from me, via email, as part of my data 
collection?

I hate to be a pain in the sacro-coccygeal joint, but I think it is 
important
that the principles that apply for any research using human subjects also
apply to the use of mail lists on the Internet.  That means that if ethical 
approval has been granted and the sampling procedure does indicate that the 
convenience sample that this List must be can be accessed, then I think 
that
is OK.  But if the ethical approval does not include using the likes of us 
as
subjects, then I think it should not.

I think that simply in terms of methodology, it may be difficult to justify 
the use of people on this List on the basis that it has to be so biased as 
to
be more than probably totally unrepresentative of midwives in general.
Furthermore the List is accessed much further than the UK and this would
create serious problems of analysis if the questionnaire was not 
specifically
written with an international audience in mind, or at least recruited
subjects on very specific entry criteria.

I think that the research subject is quite interesting, but I have doubts
about the use of this medium as a recruitment agent.

This is a personal view, but I would be interested to hear other points of
view.

Marianne Mead



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