Trying & Writing about New Teaching Methods: Does It Require IRB Approval?

I think a lot of the responses in this thread are assuming a lot based on the original post. Yes, I agree, if the work in question would involve collecting or making use of collected data (even “data” collected in the ordinary course of teaching) for the purpose of drawing generalizable conclusions about those new teaching techniques, then the professor needs to contact the IRB and either ask for exempt status or submit a protocol. (They may have to send a mini-protocol even for exemption, depending on the way they’ve set this up at the particular institution.)
On the other hand, as I suggested in my reply to Michael Deem, if the professor only plans to write their personal reflections about their own teaching experience, with anecdotes drawn from memory, without having collected data (or referring to data collected), it seems to me outside the purview of the IRB. Likewise if the scholarship has no aim of contributing to “generalizable knowledge” irrespective of whether “data” was collected (though I think this is less likely to apply in this case). The IRB can demand that I submit for approval an ethnographic study of my suburban hometown in the South, but they cannot do so if I plan to write a memoir about growing up in the same hometown. Also, according to new rules from a few years ago, they cannot demand review for an oral history of the town, even though I would collect a lot of the same data that I would for an ethnography of the same. Such research (oral history) is not even considered “research” by HHS, and does not need to be submitted for review, even for determination of “exempt” status.
So it largely depends on whether the work in question consists of “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing, and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge” or not. This definition explicitly excludes “Scholarly and journalistic activities (e.g., oral history, journalism, biography, literary criticism, legal research, and historical scholarship), including the collection and use of information, that focus directly on the specific individuals about whom the information is collected.” (This is all in the Common Rule §46.102. See also this.)
I guess any institution can add extra burdens on their faculty if they want, but it is not required by the federal laws that govern these institutions. And faculty should fight such mission creep in their institutions.
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