Privacy projects and interdisciplinary work

This post serves as a holder for continuing conversation based on the 11/20/06 Research Conversation moderated by Batya Friedman, titled Privacy By Design, rather than an accurate transcript of the conversation. Using Value Sensitive Design projects, Batya wants to ask, “what does it mean to do interdisciplinary work?” Post your follow-on comments related to the content of the talk or the Q&A time.

Research Compliance and Human Subjects

Topic: Jeffrey Cheek, Associate Vice provost for Research Compliance and Operations, and Karen Moe, Acting Director of the Human Subjects Division (HSD) and Associate Research Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, will provide an overview of the transitions underway at the Office of Research and HSD, respectively. Topics will include the upcoming accreditation in human subjects research and resulting assessment of current HSD policies and procedures, optimizing informational and educational tools to provide investigators with proactive consultation on applications to HSD, and proposed metrics to identify areas for overall quality improvement in UW’s oversight of human subjects research.

Commentary: Both speakers emphasized that compliance with federal regulations related to ethical research with human subjects is a responsibility shared by the institution and individual researchers. Several initiatives have been undertaken to improve the quality of the dialogue at UW: the Human Subjects Policy Board; maintaining a balance between education (e.g., resource creation and individual consultations) and enforcement in compliance; developing specific accountability metrics such as application turn-around time; enabling electronic submission and review of HSD applications to allow for inter-organizational coordination; targeting outreach to students, fellows, and junior faculty; introducing Committee J for social and behavioral research oversight; modifying forms for exempt classes of research to reduce the time needed for applications to be reviewed.

Open questions: How do emerging online research methods and sources of data affect IRB review processes? When is data on the internet considered public and when is it considered private? How can research collaborations develop with corporations and other entities external to UW?

iSchool identity

Thank you all for an engaging and provocative discussion. This will be a short summary of the major points. Comments are open to all comers.

A Summary:
Bob and Karine gave quick five minute introductions each.

Bob asked how you measure success in information schools. He suggested that impact was one important measure. Bob also present an initial list of stakeholders to the iSchool. Each stakeholder was listed with a way they measured the school.

Karine emphasized the importance of boundaries to help define an iSchool community. For example, it is the emphasis on information that defines us. She also recognized the developing nature of the iSchool and discussed pros and cons of firm boundaries in such a case.

These two introductions opened the room to a number of discussions. I saw two major questions:

(Q1) What is an iSchool (or our iSchool)?

 

(Q2) What are metrics of our school? What should they be?

 

Here are some answers from the room:

To (Q1) on identity:

- Information is a vague term and must be connected to People and Technology.

- The future shape of the school is still being defined. Chosen ethics or politics may help define the school.

- We should caution against becoming so undefined and amorphous lest the school itself disappear. This is a trap. (Reference other departments that were so interdisciplinary that they lost definition and disappeared).

- We have a hard time articulating who we are.

- We need a common purpose. With a common purpose, these questions of metrics will align themselves.

- We should have a set of “problem spaces”.

This is a good, non-contentious way of defining ourselves.
This will help define”Information – People – Technology”.
This will help communicate with external stakeholders.

- We do not want a school separated into knowledge silos.

- The nature of our community (welcoming, etc… ) is important to our definition as an iSchool.

- Our interdisciplinarity is important to our definition as an iSchool.

T o (Q2) on metrics:

- There is a difference between external metrics (i.e. how outside stakeholders see us) and internal metrics. External metrics allow us to communicate to the University, prospective students, etc…

- The school’s developing nature make it difficult to define metrics. Conversely, a metric may constrain the development of the school.

- The school’s interdisciplinary nature makes it difficult to produce one metric. The number of publications or the kinds of systems produced by one faculty member does not translate as a metric for another faculty member.

- The school’s internal metrics, such as the tenure process, are healthy. For example, the tenure process does take into account the impact that faculty has had on the surrounding local community or local businesses.

- Proposed measurements, based on our interdisciplinary nature:

• How many of our projects link with other departments? or have multiple investigators from different disciplines?
• How central is the iSchool to networks? How far would we go to have influence on policy? How connected are we to major decisions. This metric uses a network approach.
• What are our hiring patterns?
• Are our faculty able to communicate?
• How diverse are our doctoral committees

- In response to these measurements, a comment was raised: well, these metrics don’t fit with faculty in our school who do research alone and who don’t collaborate.

- We need a portfolio of metrics, not one general set for the school.

Statement of Purpose

This is the accompanying blog to the research discussion series at the Information School at the University of Washington.

Each weekly “conversation” will be summarized as a new post. I invite everyone to continue the Friday discussions in this public area by adding their own comments to each post.

You can keep track of new posts and ongoing conversation by using these RSS feeds: RSS feed of Entries and RSS feed of Comments.