Ethics

Ethics Committee Meetings

The School Ethics Committee (SEC) meets on the fourth Thursday of every month. In order for your application to be reviewed at the monthly meeting, applications made by staff members and PhD Students must be submitted no later than on Thursday two weeks before the meeting. Submitting your application on a shorter notice may result in it being put back to the following month.

Applications by undergraduate and Masters students have separate timelines:

Project type	Cut-off date	SEC meeting date
MSci S1 project	Monday 7th October 2024 (Week 4)	24th October 2024
SH project	Monday 28th October 2024 (Week 7)	28th November 2024
MSci S2 project	Monday 17th February 2025 (Week 4)	27th March 2025
MSc project	Friday 6th June 2025	26th June 2025

If your project requires a full ethics application, you need to submit it as soon as possible. We will review applications on a rolling basis. Ethics applications received after the cut-off date may be rejected, in which case you will have to change the direction of your project.

Undergraduate and Masters Students

Meet with your supervisor to discuss the potential ethical considerations of your project. It is crucial that your supervisor is engaged in the process. You will complete one of four possible ethics forms:

1. Take a look at the preliminary self-assessment form. Follow the guidance on the form. If you answer ‘No’ to all the questions, print the form, tick the “There are NO ethical issues raised by this project” box on the front and sign it. Then discuss the project and form with your supervisor and ask them to sign it. You should then scan and upload the form to the Ethics column on MMS. The ethics process is now complete for your project. You should attach a copy of the front page of the pre-assessment form to your dissertation.

2. If you have looked at the preliminary self-assessment form and answered ‘No’ to all questions except the question on whether your research involves human subjects, then next look at the School software artifact ethical approval application. This has been designed to cover many common student projects that involve the creation of a software artifact and some limited testing. Read the rationale and ethical considerations on this form and see if your project is covered by these. Please note that projects that involve a questionnaire that is not discussing a software artifact (e.g. questionnaires collecting personal data from people) are not covered. Next go through the rest of the answer to the questions in the ethical approval application and see if the answers apply to your project. If so, then you should complete the artifact evaluation form, print and sign it, discuss it with your supervisor and ask them to sign it, and then upload it to the Ethics column on MMS. The ethics process is now complete for your project. You should attach a copy of the artifact evaluation form to your dissertation. NB: do not edit the ethical approval application form; only complete the artifact evaluation form.

3. If neither of the above apply, then you must submit a full ethics application. This is done using the online ethics system for ethics applications and review of research involving human participants, data and samples, which can be accessed on the UTREC website. There is no need to submit the pre-assessment form or the artifact evaluation form in this case. Look at the relevant UTREC guidelines and complete the full ethics application with the help of your supervisor. . Once the online application is complete, electronically signed by you and your supervisor, and submitted using the online ethics system, the ethics committee will start reviewing it. You should hear back from the ethics committee after the respective meeting date (see timetable above). Approval may involve the ethics committee asking for further changes, but once approved you will receive an approval letter. The ethics process is now complete for your project. You should attach a copy of the approval letter to your dissertation.

4. If your project already has ethics approval (e.g. you are working on part of an existing project), then your supervisor (or the Principal Investigator of the existing project) must submit an amendment to the existing ethics application that adds you to the project. You need to discuss this with your supervisor, and the procedure would depend on the format in which the initial application has been submitted. You cannot start working with human subjects until the amendment has been approved. You should attach a copy of the approval letter to your dissertation.

Frequently asked questions:

• “I’m too late to submit my full ethics application – what do I do?”
  You cannot start your research until you obtain approval. It is therefore in your interest to submit your ethics form on time. Occasionally, it isn’t possible to do so. In this case you should discuss this with your supervisor and with the ethics committee at ethics-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk, and also inform the Project Co-ordinator for your module. The ethics committee might not necessarily agree to the late submission, in which case you will have to change the direction of your project.

• “My project has changed – what do I do now?”
  Start the whole procedure from the beginning. See the previous section for guidance on how to decide which of the forms you would need to complete and how to submit them. If you have already submitted a full ethics application, and already obtained ethical approval through that process, you would have to submit an amendment.

• “I am doing a group project with another student. Do I need to submit one application or two?”
  In this case, only one application must be submitted. The online ethics system has functionality for collaborative work on joint applications. One of you should create an application and then give access to it to the other student; then you can work on it together.

• “I am doing a joint project with another School. Do I need to submit one application or two?”
  Only one application is submitted. This should go to the lead School (typically the one for which the module code is assigned, e.g. a CS4796 student would submit to the CS Ethics Committee). But the situation may differ depending on the particular circumstances of the project. You are advised to first contact the Ethics Convener at ethics-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk.

• “My project involves children. What should I do?”
  You should read the UTREC guidance on Research involving vulnerable groups (NB this is currently being rewritten) and then contact the UTREC child panel representative Barbara Dritschel for consultation and advice. Once this is done, the application can be submitted, including copies of any correspondence with the child panel representative, to the CS Ethics Committee for review. The application will then be forwarded to UTREC for final consideration and approval. Any projects involving children that have not been discussed with the child panel representative will be returned immediately.

• “I would like to do an online survey. Is a survey considered anonymous and how should I obtain consent?”
  The University has a Qualtrics license which you should use for any online surveys. You can find more information on using Qualtrics and how to obtain consent in the UTREC guidelines.

• “My supervisor says that they already have ethics approval for my project. Do I need to do anything?”
  If the project that you are working on already has ethics approval, you still need to be added to the project. For that, your supervisor should submit an amendment following a procedure that depends on the format of the initial application. If the purpose of the project has been changed by your work, then you will need to submit a full ethics application.

• “I am only experimenting on myself or collecting personal data from myself. Do I need to do anything?”
  You still need to submit a full ethics application, as there may be ethical considerations, for instance around the storage of data or what would happen if data were lost. You do not need to provide consent forms or information sheets if you are the only participant.

• “I am using secondary data collected by someone else. Do I need approval?”
  If the data involve human subjects, then you still need to submit an ethics application, as there may be ethical concerns such as data storage, risks from analysis, licensing issues, or whether you have permission to do the analysis that you propose on the data. Your application should include evidence, e.g. of appropriate licenses and permissions. You should also read the UTREC guidance on secondary data.

Frequently encountered problems:

These are some common reasons for rejecting an application. Please try not to make these mistakes as they will delay your approval and your project.

• Not explaining the ethical considerations in the “ethical considerations” section. It is crucial that you clearly outline any ethical considerations in this section. Simply stating “there are no considerations” or “there are no ethical issues” is insufficient, as any project involving human subjects will have at the very least concerns about consent, secure storage and so forth. Please start this section with a description of these considerations, and then a brief description of how you mitigate them (more detail can be provided later).

• Dates. We see various issues with dates in the application forms. When the date is in free text, please use an unambiguous format (e.g. ISO 8601 or writing out the date in words). We have seen some use of US dates which can be misinterpreted. Also the length of projects should not exceed the length of a module for student projects (e.g. don’t have two-year projects for an SH project).

• Data. What kind of data are being collected for your project and how? Do the data contain anything identifiable or personal? Please be clear about what data are collected, how they are stored and where. If you are using secondary data, explain how you have permission to do so.

• Consent. Please make sure that you use the correct consent form for your project. We see lots of applications saying that no identifiable data will be collected, but then using a consent form that discusses coded data (i.e., identifiable data).

• Materials. If you are submitting a full ethics application, please make sure that you include all appropriate materials. This includes any questionnaires if you are using them. If you do not have your full questionnaire or interview questions ready then you should at least submit some sample questions so that the Ethics Committee can get a sense of what will be asked.

• Explaining all of the answers in the form. Please read the entire form. In particular if you answer YES/NO to some questions, you may subsequently have to explain why. For instance justify any inducements, or explain why you have chosen not to debrief your participants. Your supervisor can help here.

• Signing the form. Please make sure that you have discussed your application with your supervisor, and that both applicant and supervisor have signed the form.

Staff and PhD Students

Complete the full ethics application using the online system for ethics applications and review of research involving human participants, data and samples, which can be accessed on the UTREC website.

If you are a PhD student, both you and your supervisor must sign the form. Your supervisor should be engaged with the process from the outset.

If you have already submitted a full ethics application, and already obtained ethical approval through that process, you can ask for small changes to the application by submitting an ethical amendment form.

If you have external funding for the research, you may also have to complete a “Funders Ethical Approval Form”. UTREC maintains an extensive list of all pre-approved funders on their website. This includes all the major research councils. If your funder is not listed then you must submit the funders ethical approval form to UTREC, but this can be done at the same time as the project ethical application form to save time.