From declanm@netcom.com Fri Oct 6 07:32:09 1995 Return-Path: Received: from po5.andrew.cmu.edu by mail3.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id WAA06490; Mon, 2 Oct 1995 22:04:10 -0700 Received: (from postman@localhost) by po5.andrew.cmu.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA19284; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 01:00:19 -0400 Received: via switchmail; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 01:00:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: from unix18.andrew.cmu.edu via qmail ID ; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 00:58:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from unix18.andrew.cmu.edu via qmail ID ; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 00:57:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mms.4.60.Jan.26.1995.18.43.47.sun4c.411.EzMail.2.0.CUILIB.3.45.SNAP.NOT.LINKED.unix18.andrew.cmu.edu.sun4c.411 via MS.5.6.unix18.andrew.cmu.edu.sun4c_411; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 00:57:47 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 00:57:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "Declan B. McCullagh" To: Fight Censorship Mailing List Subject: Did CMU Approve Marty's Unethical Research? Reply-To: fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu Status: RO X-Status: I'm still a bit mystified by the way CMU handles human subjects research. Two years ago when I ran a variation of Cooper and Shepard's mental rotation task on undergraduate subjects, I needed to get approval from the psychology department. But somehow the provost's office is involved too. My advisor cleared a few things up. There are both departmental and university-wide human subjects committees. And according to my advisor, "The amount of paperwork and regulations is enormous." A few iffy experiments in the past caused much "bureaucracy for people who do experiments like me where subjects merely view a set of words and then say 'new' or 'old.'" So while institute-chairing Sirbu may have been able to bypass a department-level check, how did he and Marty get around the university's human subjects committee, organized under the office of the provost? Or did the provost approve Marty's unethical research methods? -Declan