Deb Hume posted a question about institutions requiring prior approval
before studies could be published or presented. I see a potential ethical
problem here, but not by the investigators. My understanding of the
regulations concerning Human Subjects Committees (I temporarily oversee
ours) is that their deliberations are supposed to be confidential.
Did the committee itself dictate that the results were subject to censoring
by the institution? If so, it's not within their mandated charge to do so.
Alternatively, did some agent external to the committee impose the
restriction? If so, how did they learn about the research proposal? Is some
person who is a committee member using some other administrative function
that they also perform to impose the restriction? If so, isn't this
violating the confidential nature of the committee and entering into a dual
role?
I'm not sure this is a fight that can be won, but I think it would be
appropriate to ask some hard questions about this situation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael J. Renner, Ph.D.
Interim Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs
Professor of Psychology
West Chester University
West Chester, PA 19383
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Telephone: 610-436-3310
Fax: 610-436-2763
http://www.wcupa.edu/_facstaff/facdev/
"The path of least resistance is always downhill."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
