A cautionary tale: consider future use of research data.

With most things in life, seeking forgiveness after doing something potentially controversial generally works better than seeking prior permission.

But there are exceptions to that axiom, which three doctoral students discovered when they sought to share results of a class project at a national conference.

The saga began when three women enrolled in a doctoral-level qualitative methods class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln conducted a required qualitative research study. They were: Suzanne Campbell, medical lab technician coordinator at Seward County Community College KS, Kathryn Mueller, dean of students at Orange Coast College CA and Jane Souza, executive director of Connect: A Southeast Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium.

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Enthusiastically jumping into the class assignment, the three women proceeded with their research project on women leaders in higher education. Since all aspired to be academic VPs or presidents, the topic spoke to them personally.

But they didn't anticipate that their findings could be a good conference presentation, and so they didn't seek approval from their school's Institutional Review Board (IRB) before interviewing human subjects.

"We became aware of the need for IRB approval from our advisors and a research course that we participated in during the spring 2006 semester. Seeking IRB approval and training is part of the course," Campbell later told WIHE. From the faculty member, they learned that findings from the initial interviews couldn't be made public because they didn't have IRB approval in advance.