When engaging in SoTL, care and consideration of the involvement of students or colleagues as research participants must be handled with particular sensitivity. Securing Institutional Review Board approval for research with human subjects or their data can, and is done, but may feel daunting, especially when you are new to classroom-based research. However, thinking through the ethical dilemmas and preparing the IRB proposal can greatly strengthen your study and encourage ways of including students as partners in the research process.

CUNY HRPP and your campus IRB have documents and guides to support your process:

CUNY HRPP

CUNY Recruitment of Students as Research Subjects

Here are other resources to support your understanding of how to handle the ethics of your SoTL project:

• “Ethical Issues in SoTL” by Kathleen McKinney
•  “An Ethic of Inquiry”  section of “Approaching SoTL” (Intro to Opening Lines) by Pat Hutchings (see pp. 2-4)
•  “Institutional Review Board & Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” by Georgetown University’s Visible Knowledge Project
•  “Guidelines for Human Research Participants in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Research” by Renee Meyers (White Paper from University of Wisconsin System SoTL Leadership Site)
• “An Introduction to Ethical Considerations for Novices to Research in Teaching and Learning in Canada” by Mark Maclean and Gary Poole
• “Being Ethically Minded: Practising the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in an Ethical Manner” by Ruth L. Healey, Tina Bass, Jay Caulfield, Adam Hoffman, Michelle K. McGinn, Janice Miller-Young, and Martin Haigh.