Institutional permission/approval for usability testing?

Thu Oct 23 09:52:49 EDT 2014

At the University of Michigan, we originally applied for exempt status and
did get it but then through working with our IRB rep we discovered, like
others in this thread, that for many of our studies we don't even need that
because our IRB org has an option to self-determine as non-regulated...and
many of our studies fall under "Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement
Activities - Non-Clinical" as described in table 3 on this page
<http://www.hrpp.umich.edu/om/Part4.html>.

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 9:15 AM, Jarvis, Hugh <hjarvis at buffalo.edu> wrote:

>  Like Amy, we do not request IRB approval, similarly because we only use
> the information internally to improve our web projects.
>
>
>
> Sometimes we do record using Camtasia, and we do tally names, gender, age
> cohort, and academic/professional field in our rough notes.  That insures
> we have a decent spread of subjects among the various
> age/gender/disciplinary persuasion and that we can quickly refer back to an
> individual study if needed, should additional tests surface a new factor to
> which we hadn’t been paying close attention.
>
>
>
> However none of these personal identifying details make it into our formal
> reports except as a rough tabulation to show we didn’t just speak to a very
> narrow population.
>
>
>
> We feel very comfortable with this approach, since our research goal is
> not to study people’s behavior, per se, and we have no intention of
> publicly disclosing the information we gather except in aggregate, without
> identifying details, and then only to internal clients.   If we speak about
> our work at professional conferences, we only mention these studies in very
> general terms.
>
>
>
> I work out of our marketing and publications office, so I can’t speak for
> our central libraries’ practice.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>                 Hugh
>
>
>
> *Hugh Jarvis* (PhD, MLS)
>
> Cybrarian, University Communications
>
> 330 Crofts Hall ~ University at Buffalo
>
> Buffalo, NY USA  14260-7015
>
> ph: 716- 645-4604  fax: 716-645-6969
>
> email: hjarvis at buffalo.edu (preferred)
>
>
>
> *“Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are
> in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries,
> benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a
> non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations
> do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.” Molly
> Ivins*
>
>
>
> *From:* Amy Vecchione [mailto:amyvecchione at BOISESTATE.EDU]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 22, 2014 6:01 PM
> *Subject:* Re: Institutional permission/approval for usability testing?
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
>
>
> At Boise State if the data is for internal review only we did not need to
> obtain an IRB, but we did document the testing with a form acknowledging
> that it was for internal review only.
>
>
>
> Now we have just completed a very large undertaking of usability testing
> including something like 10 different scripts and other types of data
> acquisition so that we CAN write about it. We do not obtain any identifying
> information nor demographic information so no one can be identified for
> their information.
>
>
>
> I've written a number of IRBs at my institution, so I've learned what they
> need and don't need.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Amy
>
>
>   Amy Vecchione, Digital Access Librarian/Associate Professor
>
> http://works.bepress.com/amy_vecchione/
>
> Albertsons Library, Boise State University, L212
> http://library.boisestate.edu
> (208) 426-1625
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 2:17 PM, Ken Varnum <varnum at umich.edu> wrote:
>
>  We [University of Michigan Library] applied for and obtained blanket IRB
> approval for that informal usability studies, though our definition of
> informal may include the recording of subjects.
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Ken Varnum | Web Systems Manager | University of Michigan Library
>
> varnum at umich.edu | @varnum | 734-615-3287
>
> http://www.lib.umich.edu/users/varnum
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 4:24 PM, Alexander Sonsteby <
> Alexander.Sonsteby at metrostate.edu> wrote:
>
>   Hi, all,
>
>
>
> I am writing to ask how many of your libraries have sought institutional
> review board (IRB)/human subject review board (HSRB) approval to conduct
> informal usability testing on your libraries' websites. By "informal" I
> mean that you don't record your test subjects, track their names or other
> personal identifiers (like student ID numbers) in a database, etc.
>
>
>
> I realize that this may be a sensitive topic for some, so feel free to
> write me off-list if you prefer.
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Alec
>
>
>
> *Alec Sonsteby, M.S.*
>
> Associate Professor and Reference & Instruction Librarian
>
>
>
> (O) 651.793.1636
>
> (F) 651.793.1615
> alexander.sonsteby at metrostate.edu
>
>
>
> Metropolitan State University
>
> 645 East Seventh Street
>
> Saint Paul, Minnesota 55106
>
>
>
> www.metrostate.edu/library
>
> *Like <http://www.facebook.com/metrostatelibrary> us on Facebook!*
>
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> 2014-10-20
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> 2014-10-22
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> 2014-10-22
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-- 

Suzanne Chapman
Head, User Experience Department
University of Michigan | MLibrary
734-763-0246

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2014-10-23
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