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Ethical Requirements

The below information is only relevant to WMG Overseas students in 2023/24

All students completing a dissertation will be required to complete an ethical review form. Data MUST
not be collected without first obtaining ethics approval for your research, or this being formally waived
for your project. If you submit a project that includes data gathered from or about people without ethical
approval this may be treated as academic misconduct and could lead to a mark of zero being awarded for
your project *

Both students and supervisors must have completed the required training prior to completing any ethical
documentation. The WMG SDA form requires that student supplies evidence of the completion of the
University Information Security Smart training (replaces the previous GDPR and Information Security
Essentials training), as a minimum. This course states that you need a Staff ID but WMG students should
complete this course. To prove that you have attended this online course, please append a screenshot to
include your course assessment result, including your name (at the top right of screen) and the date and time
(bottom right of screen). Where the course mentions escalation of issues or GDPR breaches, these should be
sent to your project supervisor ASAP, rather than any University department.

Ethical approval should not be considered as a bureaucratic obstacle; it is an important mechanism for
ensuring and demonstrating that the design of your research respects the rights of those who participating
in the research.


For most projects your Project Supervisor has the authority to assess whether the ethics of your project
method is sound (see Section C for more information), and ALL project supervisors should have completed
basic training on research ethics so they can guide you appropriately on these matters. Once a project
supervisor has approved a project, it then passes to the department to assess the project's suitability for
ethical approval. It should be remembered that project supervisors do not have the final sign off for student
projects.

A) General Guidelines
The general requirements for ensuring you adhere to ethics guidelines are that:
1) You cause no harm to any participants by collecting or publishing data
2) You abide by the UK Data Protection Act for the storage of data

B) Department Delegated Approval Process
The process for ethical approval for the majority of WMG student projects (see Section C) is as follows:

Stage 1 Ensure the project aims and objectives are agreed with your supervisor and that these meet
your course requirements.
Stage 2 Complete your background reading for the project and ideally draft your literature review
chapter, and share this with your supervisor (unless you are completing an entirely theoretical/
literature-based project). Your background research will usually include a review of suitable
methods for your project type and topic so you are confident that your suggested methods will
enable to you to answer your research question/ aim and objectives.
Stage 3 For OS MSc students:
After detailed discussions with your supervisor about your ideal methodology you should begin
to draft your Project Proposal document (see Sections D and E for what this should contain).
Once you are both agreed on the correct method, and you have a draft Project Proposal, you can
then complete the Supervisors’ Delegated Ethical Approval (SDA) form and append this and any
additional information as an appendix to your proposal document. These will then be emailed to
your supervisor for review.
The completed methodology and SDA form would usually be received by admin no later than 5 months
prior to end of registration date for FT OS students; or 10 months prior to end of registration for PT OS
students. Your application for ethical approval MUST always be received prior to start of data
collection. Please discussthis with your project module leader orsupervisor for clarification on what is
expected for your particular course
Stage 4 The Project Supervisor agrees the research method, and confirms the statements made in the
ethics form match their understanding of the project method. The supervisor should then sign
the Supervisor Declaration form (sign by use of an e-signature or wet-sign the printed document
then scan and upload).
Supervisor then submits the SDA (Supervisor Delegated Approval) form to the relevant Admin
team (see below).
Stage 5 The relevant admin team will respond to the ethical approval submission by either:
i) emailing the student and supervisor confirming that ethical approval has been given and
providing an ethical approval reference number
ii) emailing the student and supervisor confirming that ethical approval has been waived (for
projects where there are no human participants or companies involved)
iii) asking for more information about the project before the ethical approvals processing is
complete
NB: Students MUST NOT start collecting research data until this stage is complete and either
ethical approval has been formally approved or waived, i.e. (i) or (ii) above has taken place
Stage 6 Students must include the email confirming or waiving ethical approval within the appendices of
their dissertation for evidence of completing this process.


C) Ethical approval that cannot be delegated to Departments

The Delegated Approval process described above will be suitable for all projects that include secondary data
analysis only, or those that are limited to data collection by interview, focus group, and questionnaire/survey,
clinical audit, service evaluation, or involves the evaluation of software or e-Learning materials, and only
with participants who are not vulnerable and not dependent (e.g. not receiving health or social care, primary
or secondary education, or criminal justice services), where the research does not investigate sensitive or
intrusive matters (e.g. health status, wellbeing, political opinions, religious beliefs, professional or academic
misconduct, criminal activity, sexual history, etc.).


If the project is something other than these types and the project uses human participants for their research
using other research methods (i.e. involves research through observation, experimentation, action research,
ethnography; or involves NHS patients/staff, children, vulnerable adults, etc.), students MUST apply for full
ethical approval through the Biological Sciences Research Ethics Committee (see BSREC webpage for
further guidance). If you are in this situation it is important that you allow at least 1 month for BSREC to
assess your research proposal, and you MUST NOT start data collection until you received full ethical
approval from BSREC. As above, once you have been granted ethical approval you will receive an email from
BSREC, which you can then use as evidence for successful completing the ethical approvals process.
If you are at all unsure whether your project meets the Delegated Approval requirements, please discuss
this with your supervisor or contact wmg-ft-projects@warwick.ac.uk for further guidance.


D) What your Research Methodology/ Proposal chapter should contain
This is fully detailed by your relevant Study Skills module; but a
research methodology or proposal document should contain comprehensive information of the research
methods to be used, why they are appropriate, detail about any participants, and any other ethical
considerations.

This information only needs to be in DRAFT form for your ethics submission, but in enough detail that your
supervisor (and a potentially third party) can understand what data you intend to collect and what you will
then do with it.

*** NB: If you are considering use of surveys or interviews, a DRAFT of ALL survey, or interview/focus
group questions MUST be included with your submission***

E) Additional Documentation
a) Participant Consent Form;
It is advised that students seek to gain formal consent for all face-to-face interviews by asking
participants to sign a Participant Consent Form (PCF). This is especially important if it is believed that
the interview may contain any contentious or sensitive information.
The template Participant Consent Form for WMG students is the one that the University uses for staff
projects, as it includes all suggested good practice for the text to include in your consent forms;

b) Participant Information Leaflet;
Any participants that you meet for face-to-face for interviews, focus groups or surveys should also be
shown a Participant Information Leaflet (PIL) to inform them of the general details of the research.
There is a template PIL for students to use, again which is the one used by the University for staff
research projects, as it includes the usual information you should be sharing with your research
participants;
If you are carrying out research remotely it is advised that a cover letter (covering as a minimum the
information contained in the PIL) is sent to all participants to inform them of their rights. Students using
electronic surveys (i.e. Qualtrics), can provide the PIL in the survey header. Under GDPR guidance, you
should always get your participants to 'tick a box' or similar for participants to consent for usage of their
data.


When submitting these documents with your ethical approval documentation, you only need to provide
your template Participant Consent Form and Participant Information Leaflet (i.e. the blank consent form not
any forms signed by your participants) as you will not have begun your data collection by this point.
Likewise, the Information Leaflet should have all of the relevant information, apart from the ethical approval
reference number and associated date left as X's. Once you receive ethical approval, please then insert this
additional reference data into your Information Leaflet for distributing to participants and then inclusion in
your dissertation appendices.

F) Other Information
a) Travelling abroad for data collection;
The University advises against taught students travelling outside their country of study to collect research
data. Most research data collection can now be completed remotely, so there is often no need for travelling.
If students MUST travel to collect data, this MUST be pre-agreed with a WMG projects team, and have
appropriate travel/ research insurance to cover you for these activities. There are also risk assessments that
must be completed and submitted along with your ethical approval application. If you If you are intending to
travel abroad to collect ANY information from participants, then you MUST have received ethical approval
for your research BEFORE you travel. Any data collected overseas without prior ethical approval will be
subject to penalties, which could include failing your dissertation module. Please also see the University
guidance on projects collecting data overseas

b) Use of external software tools;
The University allow use of some external software tools to conduct research. The full list of approved tools
can be found on the BSREC website (see the right hand side menu and look for link called 'IDC approved
research services'). Students should not be using any other tools for their research, except those mentioned
as fully reviewed and approved by the University.


c) Missed ethics deadline;
Any student missing the usual deadlines for ethical approval will need to submit for ethical approval as soon
as they are able to following the deadline, or should ensure that their project only involves secondary data
and that no data is gathered from or about people during their research project.


d) Changing your methods post-ethical approval Some changes to research methods affect the approved ethics status of your research (e.g., changing the
sample from an adult to a child population), whilst other changes would not affect this (e.g. increasing your
sample group from 20 to 30 respondents although their characteristics do not change). If you make any
changes at all you must discuss this with your supervisor to determine whether you should submit a
modified ethics application for approval. If you are in any doubt, or wish to change your methods
significantly after you have received ethical approval, please send a new SDA form to your supervisor with
details of the additional data, or changes to data collection you would like to make. Supervisors can then
send the new form to the Full-time Master's Office to gain additional approval for the new or improved
methods.

e) Resubmission dissertations
Students are advised not to collect any NEW data for any resubmission of their dissertation. If you feel you
need to collect new data in order to gain a pass for your work, please first discuss this with your project
supervisor, and if necessary the projects team to confirm this is necessary. You WILL then be required to
submit another ethical approval form (preferably via your supervisor as they are required to sign this
document) to collect any new data that was not described within the original paperwork.

f) NHS projects during COVID
Please see the NHS website but generally UG and PG projects are not likely to receive ethical approval from
the NHS during this very busy time.
https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/research-planning/student-research/
* Projects submitted using data gathered from or about people without ethical approval will be subject to
penalties, which could include failing your dissertation module *