School of Computing Ethics Committee
The School of Computing has an Ethics Committee, which has responsibility for giving ethical approval to all non-medical studies that involve human participants. The Ethics Committee consists of the following members:
- Mrs Kathleen Cummins
- Dr Andy Judson (External Member)
- Prof Ian Ricketts (Convenor)
- Ms Monica Stewart (Clerical Support)
- Dr Annalu Waller
- Dr Simon Wells
Ethical approval is concerned with such matters as methods of recruitment of study participants, informed consent procedures, information given to participants about the aims and methods of the study, contact information given to participants, and opportunities for feedback from participants to researchers. In addition, it covers the conditions of the study, discussion of any risks involved, freedom of participants to leave the study at any time, and matters of data protection and confidentiality. The ethical approval procedure is based on "Code of Conduct, Ethical Principles & Guidelines", section on "Ethical principles for conducting research with human participants" published by the British Psychological Society in January 2000.
Research is deemed to be the practice of collecting data about human participants or their behaviour to further knowledge. Data can be collected experimentally, by questionnaire, by interview, observationally, by computer, telephone, over the Internet, or by any means of recording human behaviour. Most final year and postgraduate projects are therefore deemed to require ethical approval. If you are recruiting participants in any way, you must submit an application containing an ethical declaration to the committee using form ECa-2006 (see section 11) before commencing the study. Signing the ethical declaration is normally sufficient - you will receive an acknowledgement of your submission. However, if you wish to recruit children, NHS patients or vulnerable adults as participants, your application will be reviewed by members of the committee. Examples of good and poor submissions will be posted to the website from time to time. In the case of IMD and Computing Honours projects, special meetings will be convened to consider all applications for the current year. The dates for the 2009/10 academic year are:
- IMD - applications to be submitted by 29 October 2009, week 7 (meeting scheduled for 10:00, 3 November 2009)
- Computing Honours Projects (AC40001) - applications to be submitted by 26 November 2009, week 11 (meeting scheduled for 10:00, 3 December 2009)
- MSc Design Ethnography - applications to be submitted by 25 March 2010 (meeting scheduled for 10:00, 31 March 2010)
- All other School of Computing MSc Projects (AC52010) - applications to be submitted by 17 June 2010 (meeting scheduled for 09:30, 23 June 2010)
Applications to be considered at these meetings MUST be submitted by the date shown above. All other applications will be dealt within a month of submission.
To obtain School ethical approval for a study, researchers must submit an application before they conduct the study. (The committee will endeavor to process applications within four weeks.) When testing vulnerable individuals, such as children or disabled people, it may be necessary to apply to Disclosure Scotland to get approval for the researchers employed on the study. If NHS patients are to be involved in a study, ethical approval will also be required from IRAS.
The Ethics Code of Practice contains:
- application forms for SoC Ethical Approval;
- details on how to apply for School Ethical Approval;
- example forms;
- information about COREC and Disclosure Scotland.
Frequently asked questions about the Ethical Approval procedures and how to complete the forms.
Applications for Ethical Approval and enquiries should be sent to the convenor (ethics@computing.dundee.ac.uk).