1. The first step in gaining consent is to seek and receive the approval of the Institutional Research Board, which should have a presence on most campuses. To do research involving human subjects, you need to get IRB approval first, and then ask students to sign consent forms. (Doing it the other way around violates most IRB standards.) Furthermore, it appears that email messages and web-board posts are protected by copyright law. In other words, researchers cannot quote a post in its entirety without a signed waiver by the author.

2. IRB boards usually want to see the following on a consent form:

• a statement of how much confidentiality you can provide to subjects;
• a statement of risks involved in the study;
• the name of a contact person who is responsible for the study;
• information about how a subject can withdraw if he/she decides later not to participate.

3. Researchers in the field of rhetoric and composition should also be aware that the standards being developed by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, National Council of Teachers of English, are even more stringent than IRB standards, in part to recognize the power differential between teachers and students. The CCCC standards for "fair use" may be reviewed in the journal College Composition and Communication, 51.3, February 2000, 485-7.  See also "Guidelines for the Ethical Treatment of Students and Student Writing in Composition Studies," CCC, 52.3, February 2001, 485-490.

4. After permission to conduct research is granted, instructors should distribute the consent form to all participating students for that semester. Typically, instructors have also distributed an explanatory letter with the form.

The following are templates for a consent form and an explanatory letter:

 Consent Form: ["Insert Title of Project"]

I, _______________________________(Student’s Name), agree to participate in the "[insert Title of Project]" study being conducted by [insert Researcher’s Name]. The study is being done as part of [insert nature of work, e.g. a doctorate] at [insert name of institution]. In signing this form, I give permission for [insert Researcher’s Name] to:

• Include my posts to the Intercollegiate E-Democracy Project multi-class network in [his or her] database, for further analysis.

• Use excerpts from my posts, as well as from any follow-up questionnaires sent to me, to make points about the subject of the study in any written or publicly presented versions of [his or her] study

• To use information that I voluntarily supply on questionnaires to create a general portrait of the entire group participating in the study (e.g., the number of males and the number of females)

• To interview my instructor, __________________________(Instructor’s Name)

I understand that the results of this study will appear in [insert name of targeted publication site or degree], and may also appear in published form or in papers presented at conferences. I understand that [insert Researcher’s Name] may be using direct quotations from various forms of my written work, and that [he or she] will conceal my name and other features that may serve to identify me in order to preserve my privacy. I further understand that, because of the very public nature of the listservs that serve as the primary database for this project, [he or she] cannot guarantee complete anonymity; it may be possible for readers of [his or her] work to determine my identity.

___________________________________
(signature)

___________________________________ _____________________
(name, printed) (today’s date)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not wish to participate in this study in any way. Please do not use any of my words from the IEDP multi-class network.

___________________________________
(signature)

___________________________________ _____________________
(name, printed) (today’s date)

Explanatory Letter

Date

Dear Student,

My name is [insert Researcher’s Name] and I am [insert Professional Position/Title] at [insert Name of Institution]. You are participating [have participated] in the Intercollegiate E-Democracy Project, an electronic project that linked your class with other classes around the country. I am interested in researching [subject of research--e.g., how students learn to use rhetoric to argue in an on-line public setting], and I would like to study the dialogues you generated on the IEDP multi-class network as part of my scholarly work. I hope you will give me permission to do so.

For this study, I plan to read and analyze some of the web-board conversations that [you are currently participating [you participated] in for your class; I will be interested in conversations that were highly successful as well as those that involved struggle and difficulty. [Include sentences like the following, as appropriate: I think it may be possible that [[insert variables or qualities you are observing]] I am also asking you to fill out a brief questionnaire giving me a few facts about yourself. And finally, I am seeking a few volunteers who would be willing to let me work with them for follow-up interviews and related activities.

The results of this study will become part of [insert kind of document], to be submitted to [name target publication site]. It is also likely that I will present portions of my research at professional conferences, and that some of what I find may be published, in article or book form, for a similar audience of professional educators. In all public forms of this work, I will remove your name and any other information that might serve to identify individual students.

Please sign the attached form to indicate whether or not you are willing to participate, and return the form to your instructor.  I realize that many of you are required to participate in the IEDP multi-class network for your classes, but please know that you are NOT required to participate in the study I am doing, and that your decision to participate (or not) in my study will not affect your grade or your standing in your course in any way. Also, if you agree to participate in the study and then later decide you would like to withdraw, you can simply notify me by email [insert email address] or phone [insert phone number] and I will withdraw all information related to you from my database.

Thanks, in advance, for being willing to consider participation in this study.

Sincerely yours,

[Researcher’s Name]