Contact: Maridith Geuder
Within the vast expanse of cyberspace, is it possible for university and other researchers to maintain the privacy of individuals who furnish data that becomes publicly available?
That's the question posed by Mississippi State sociologist Frank M. Howell, a nationally recognized authority on data management and security, in a forthcoming national publication.
"With polls and surveys increasingly employed by social science researchers, privacy and confidentiality are becoming even more important," Howell said, adding that data often is shared and posted electronically.
A specialist in applying technology to social science research, Howell examines the privacy issue in the official bulletin of the University of Michigan's Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.
ICPSR, which maintains the world's largest archive of computerized social science data, publishes a quarterly journal to serve its more than 400 international members. In addition to featuring Howell's investigation of the privacy issue, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based organization is announcing a change in its Web site.
ICPSR's archives now will conform to Howell's recommendations for complying with existing federal law and guidelines for archived data on human subjects, said executive director Myron P. Gutmann.
"Frank Howell is a leader in communicating the issues that confront both researchers and review boards," Gutmann said. "Our organization represents a large portion of the research universities in the United States and Frank's presentations at our meetings and in his bulletin article are an important service to our members."
Howell, a longtime member of Mississippi State's Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects in Research, said the university has been aggressive in establishing measures to ensure the highest level of research protocols. He is among 17 members of the campus IRB committee, which includes faculty members from several academic areas, along with local physicians and community representatives.
"Through the Office of Regulatory Compliance, Mississippi State has dealt actively with these issues for many years," Howell said, noting that the regular training sessions are held to make university researchers aware of research issues and federal regulations.
Tracy S. Arwood, MSU's regulatory compliance officer, said the contributions of faculty members like Howell enable university IRBs throughout the world to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects.
"Compliance with federal regulations governing the use of human subjects is the shared responsibility of institutions, researchers and society," she said. "To foster the public trust, institutions and researchers must promote and conduct ethical research that promises societal benefits.
"To do anything less will erode the research enterprise," Arwood said.