Human Subjects Review

Today {& unfortunately tomorrow} I am doing an online course for the Human Subjects Review. It's all about ethics in research & making sure there is informed consent, the risks are minimal, etc, etc. To be honest, it has taken me much longer to work on this than I had anticipated. I'm not even half done yet! I just got to a section that states oral histories & information gathering interviews are not even considered human subjects research! Beyond frustrating. I want to follow all the rules & appropriate procedures for this, but still. Has anyone out there done the online class before? Would an in person class have been better? And just to get ahead of myself a little bit... any tips for interviewing people!? I appreciate any thoughts on the matter.