Unlocking this post in case anyone feels like linking. Please also note that as of right now, the following applies only to researchers living in the US or working in US institutions. Similar legal and ethical standards apply in most nations, but they may be called different things.

First, there was survey!fail, which you can read all about here if you somehow missed that whole kerfuffle.

And now xebgoc has pointed me to a year-old article in a scholarly journal that attempts to draw some sort of conclusion about fangirl attitudes towards Hamlet via the d-t.com boards (with predictable ZOMG CRAAAAZY FEMALES! "conclusions").

I know that I've got a lot of people on my f-list here who don't really engage in a lot of metafandomish activities and don't participate in more than one fandom, or even just stick to a small portion of Doctor Who fandom and nothing more. So I'm offering the following PSA for folks who may have missed some of the above cautionary tales:

If you are on a forum or an LJ comm or a blog and someone arrives claiming to be doing academic research and wanting participants, before you go any further with that person, you absolutely need to get answers to the following questions (and get them publicly if possible, so that all concerned parties can see the answers):

• Do you have a background in doing social or human subjects research? [Whether or not a researcher's ultimate goal is to present a social theory, if they are studying the behaviour (observed, polled or self-reported) of human beings (on-line or in person), they are doing social research. There are a number of academic, ethical and institutional concerns specific to doing any human-subjects research, and someone not trained in this area is very likely going to overlook or try to circumvent them. However, these safeguards exist for a reason. Anyone who claims to not actually be doing social research, or admits that they have no training in social research but have convinced themselves that they are totally qualified to do it anyway, should not be engaged with. If they care enough about the topic, they can go get some training and come back later.]
• Has your research been cleared by an Institutional Review Board (IRB)? If not, please state the reasons why you feel that it is exempt from review. [Any academic employed by a college, university or research institution must clear their research with their institution's IRB if they are going to be working with human subjects (beyond just observing behaviour in a public space). The IRB may declare their research "exempt" meaning that it's been deemed to pose no threat of harm to anyone participating, thus rendering the consent and assent of the participants less important. If the researcher feels that their research does not fall under the purview of IRB review, they should be happy to discuss why, and to cite the regulations of their institution, as well as federal regulations covering human subjects research. The burden of proof here is on them, not you. If the research plan has been reviewed, it should display on all official documentation an IRB #. People who claim to be "freelance" researchers who are not under the auspices of any institution, and therefore not subject to IRB regulations, should be treated with great caution. IRBs exist as safeguards, and someone operating without one should be bending over backwards to prove to you that they know what they are doing, that they are concerned with research ethics and that they will do what they say they are going to do.]
• What protections will you have for anonymity, confidentiality and data security? [Part of any IRB application will be what the researchers are going to do with the data and how they are going to store it. If you are going to fill out any sort of survey or poll, or if you email back and forth with the researcher, make sure you see proof that they have made a commitment to data security first. It doesn't matter if the things you're discussing are completely innocuous—this is a principle of research ethics and should be adhered to.]
• What sort of background research have you done? [This isn't so much a matter of formal research ethics as just poor scholarship. A good researcher will spend time doing literature reviews, contacting other academics who have researched the same field, and building background knowledge of the subject before plunging in and actually engaging in the research. Doing this lessens the probability that their research will be skewed by them mindlessly picking the absolute worst sample group on the entire internet, and it also lessens the probability that they will utterly misinterpret their results.]

As a research subject, you have the right to know who this person is, where they come from and what they are doing. I know that it can seem lovely and exciting to have someone from "the outside" express an interest in your fandom or group, and believe me, I find fandom sociologically fascinating and I would love for there to be more research on it, but you do not have to take part in this research if you find it to be unethical, shoddy, or just plain lame. And you do have every right to speak up and ask questions of the researchers.

Other people on my f-list who also have a background in human subjects research, do you see anything missing or erroneous about the above? Please let me know, if so.