Dear AoIR-ists: The AoIR ethics working committee would like to collect examples of positive and productive discussions between researchers and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), REBs, and their equivalents outside the U.S. and Canadian borders. Thanks to the concerted efforts of Mark Johns, Lois Ann Scheidt, Mary Gray, and the ethics working committee, there is now a website available for AoIR-ists to help us collect these experiences and insights concerning working with oversight authorities such as IRBs or their equivalents. Please see <http://faculty.luther.edu/~johnsmar/AoIR/AoIRform.htm> First of all, please be assured that any material provided through this site will be treated as confidential. It will be shared initially with the ethics working committee on our closed list. If the material promises to be useful to the larger AoIR membership - it will be distributed only in a form (e.g., anonymized) explicitly approved by the author(s). Our goal is to develop a collection of real-world examples of current ethical issues in Internet research and examples of their resolutions‹first of all, in order to develop an aggregate picture of contemporary research ethics. We think this database of examples, moreover, will be especially useful to researchers with little previous experience in taking up the issues typically raised by IRBs and their equivalents, as it will serve as an introduction and orientation to these issues and the processes of dialogue and negotiation needed for their successful resolution. As well, this database should provide a useful set of examples that can serve as precedents for researchers using similar methodologies, etc., who must provide their IRBs or equivalents with suitable argumentation and rationale for their ethical procedures. Finally, these examples will help the ethics working committee see where the current AoIR ethical guidelines have been useful‹and where they need further revision and development. Mark D. Johns, Assistant Professor of Communication at Luther College, on behalf of the ethics working committee of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), is using this survey to gather research data on the experiences of researchers who have utilized the AoIR Research Ethics guidelines to successfully secure IRB approval for their research projects. Again, all information submitted on this website will be treated as confidential--i.e., it will be discussed as submitted solely by the members of the AoIR ethics working committee. For use beyond the AoIR ethics working committee, we will exercise whatever degree of anonymity a researcher may request for his/her account -- i.e., including the possibility of anonymizing the researcher, the institution and discipline(s) involved, etc. We will use specific examples in more public venues -- beginning with the AoIR list itself -- only after a specific version of a researcher's account has been submitted to the researcher for review and the researcher has granted the AoIR ethics working committee permission to use. However, in order to discuss with you the level of anonymity required, and to receive any other necessary follow up, it is necessary that you provide an email address by which we may reach you. This research is being conducted under the auspices of the Luther College in Decorah, Iowa USA and the Luther College Human Subjects Research Board (HSRB). If you have any questions about the intended uses, practices of anonymity, etc. - please contact Dr. Charles Ess, chair of the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (cmess@drury.edu), Dr. Mark D. Johns at Luther College (johnsmar@luther.edu) or Dr. Julie Potter, chair of the Luther College HSRB (potterju@luther.edu). While there may well be compelling reasons for researchers _not_ to share their stories with us in this way - we hope that enough of us will be able to contribute to this collection so as to eventually constitute a useful set of examples, insights, precedents, etc. for the AoIR membership. Our thanks to Mark Johns, Lois Ann Scheidt, and Mary Gray for helping to realize and shepherd this project along. Cheers and all best wishes, Charles Ess Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/ Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23