FacultyInformation
From Wyclif
To Instructors
Welcome to the Chaucer Wiki
We welcome your and your students' participation in whatever fashion you wish, for course credit, extra-credit, or enrichment purposes. To begin, simply go (here - list of questions or texts) and enter a question, a text, or a topic. Some topics have already been placed on the wiki. Please remember that anyone participating in the wiki, not just your own students, will be able to add to, delete, or edit the materials placed on the wiki. We will be checking regularly to prevent or eliminate grossly inappropriate material.
We will also write to all instructors every few weeks during the semester (through May) with information about the wiki and how it is growing. Please note this revised information on the research design of this project. We have provided this specifically to answer possible Institutional Research Board (IRB) concerns.
A Legal Issue: IRB Approval
Because we (Ken and Susan) plan to discuss this pilot version of the Chaucer wiki at the New Chaucer Society Congress in July, we must ask that you get your school's OK to participate. If we simply set up a wiki for anyone to use and never reported on it, there would be no need for permission. However, for this pilot we need each faculty participant to receive approval from their institution's IRB (Institutional Review Board) committee (smaller schools may simply have a contact person).
What Is IRB and Why Bother With It?
Every college and university that receives federal research funds has an IRB committee whose purpose is to ensure that research involving human subjects is performed safely and within federal guidelines.
Traditionally, and for the most part, humanities scholars don't do human-subjects research. However, teachers in many fields are engaging in research about their teaching. This research involves thoughtful planning and systematic reflection on classroom practices. Such reflection may include work done by, or opinions offered by, human subjects: our students. This is why classroom-based or educational research is of interest to IRB committees, although most educational research (including, we believe, this pilot project) is exempt under 46.101.b of the HHS Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects.
In the case of education-related research, most IRB committees will waive or expedite permission. However, each school's IRB must make that decision. We want our project to be transparent to all participants' institutions, and therefore ask that you receive your IRB's approval.
What Will An IRB Want to Know?
Your IRB will likely want the following information about the purpose of the project and how it will work:
Principal investigators: Ken Tompkins, Richard Stockton College, and Susan Yager, Iowa State University.
Purpose of the research: To build a Chaucer wiki with the participation faculty and students involved in the teaching of Chaucer classes at several schools, colleges and/or universities. This pilot project receives no funding from any source. We simply hope to learn whether and how a wiki might be useful in teaching Chaucer.
How students will be invited to participate: Students whose teachers wish them to be part of the Chaucer wiki are invited to participate. Participation for research purposes is voluntary (even though, as a teacher, you may require that they be part of the wiki to fulfill a class assignment). The wiki's welcome message to students makes explicit that, by joining the wiki, they give permission for the organizers to use the wiki for research purposes; however, students who do not want their work assessed or studied will be able to opt out of the research aspect of the wiki.
No identifying data will be collected about individual student participants, and none will be placed at any risk. Any assessment participants make about the project's effectiveness will be anonymous, voluntary and without consequence.
How information about the wiki will be gathered: The investigators will track how often the wiki is added to or changed, and will assess qualitatively (using rubrics) any changes in the quality of the users' comments over time. By means of an anonymous web-based survey, the investigators will ask participants for attitudinal data regarding computer-mediated instruction, including but not limited to the use of the Chaucer wiki. They will also be asked for demographic information (age, major, gender, computer ownership, etc.) and for estimates of the amount of time they spend on the wiki.
Participants may also be asked open-ended questions, via an anonymous web-based collection method, regarding their learning in the Chaucer class as compared with their learning in other courses that do not use a wiki. No participant will be required to respond, and no identifying data will be gathered.
Individual faculty members may wish to assess particular learning activities designed for the wiki; the investigators will assist faculty in formulating these assessments.
Any assessment participants make about the project's effectiveness will be anonymous, voluntary and without consequence.
The organizers understand that this research is exempt from Institutional Review Board review of human subjects research under section 46.101.b of the HHS Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects.
Please ask your IRB committee or contact person to waive or expedite approval of your class' participation, and send a copy of the response you receive to Ken Tompkins at Richard Stockton College (ken at loki.stockton.edu).
Thanks and let us know if you have any questions!
Ken and Susan
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