what is an institutional review board?

Answer 1

An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a panel of specially trained (and experienced) scholars at a university. The IRB reviews studies proposed by faculty or students that may qualify as "experimentation involving live human subjects."

There are special and very strict ethical rules that scholars and students must follow when interviewing or otherwise working with human subjects, and when working with communities outside of the university. The IRB makes sure all of these ethical and procedural concerns are addressed in the design of the experiment or study.

Just to be clear: "Experimentation involving human subjects" includes such seemingly unintrusive and benign studies as asking people to fill out a survey, or interviewing people about their opinions on certain topics.

Any scholarly study that involves human beings must be approved by the IRB before research can even begin.