Common mistakes and delays: Human Ethics
The following information has been prepared to help researchers avoid delays in the human ethics application process.
Absence of Complaints Clause in the Explanatory Statement
A complaints clause should appear at the end of the Explanatory Statement. This is the section near the end of the Explanatory Statement in the box with your details, the Committee's details and your project number e.g., 200800000. This information is critical for the participants information which also highlights who to contact if they wish to find out further information, complain about the conduct of the research or to simply inform the researcher that they cannot fill in the survey at the present time.
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Anonymous surveys and consent
The Committee often find that researchers want to conduct an anonymous survey, but then ask participants to complete a Consent Form. This would then make it identifiable and therefore not anonymous! If a potential participant returns a survey anonymously, then you can take that as implied consent and a consent form is not required. You also do NOT need to complete Form P in this situation.
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'Assent Form' for minors
An Assent Form is a consent form for minors, although not legally binding (assent is required because they are under 18 years). Researchers would obtain assent from children in a classroom to agree to being involved in research, as well as consent from their parents. In cases where parents have given their consent, yet a student has not given assent, then you would take the minors assent as confirmation that they do not wish to be a participant in your research.
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Coercion of participants - part of unequal relationships/power relationships
You may be unaware that friends and family may feel obligated to participate in your research. The Committee ask that you take this into consideration and highlight, in your application, that you are aware of the coercion aspect in your research and demonstrate how you will minimise the risk of coercion.
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Consent Form
Consent Forms should be consistent with the data collection activities being undertaken e.g. asking consent for videotaping when no videotaping is being done. The Committee ask that whatever method of data collection you are using, ensure that the Consent Form lists the same items you have plan to use (Collection of data material and procedures section on the forms).
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Cultural circumstances within your recruitment methodology
In some countries, asking locals to sign a consent form is offensive and is just not done that way. But in Australia it is the opposite. In some cultures it is customary to give a gift or exchange of some-sort so the Committee would like you to demonstrate your understanding of these cultural differences.
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Dependent Relationships
Unequal relationships - The Committee is looking for your understanding about the presence of a power relationship and want you to acknowledge the existence of such a relationship. You will not be penalised if an unequal relationship exists.
Power relationships - There are circumstances like, teacher/student, Doctor/patient, Friend/friend.
i.e. when recruiting participants from your workplace, you need to remember that you are wearing your "researcher hat", not your "employer hat" for research purposes. You're representing Monash University, not your workplace. Therefore, data that would ordinarily be available to you as an "employee" of that company, is no longer data that you can access readily as a "researcher". You should not expect that this data can be collected without going through the appropriate consent procedure.
Please note that personal information, collected for employment purposes, is exempt from MUHREC privacy requirements. Personal information is identifiable information, e.g. name, staff/student numbers, email address, sex, age etc.
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Diagnostic Methods
The Committee agree that some researchers have a lack of sensitivity to the possibility of discovering adverse personal circumstances e.g. disease, mental conditions, and associated ethical obligations. Please consider and outline how you will manage the situation if you discover someone has a disease or medical condition?
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Email address
Please provide MUHREC with a Monash student email address. To comply with University policy, MUHREC will only correspond to the students Monash email address. This should also be used on any recruitment material (recruitment poster, advertisement etc). Do not use your personal emails i.e. @hotmail, @gmail, @yahoo etc.
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Explanatory Statement
Have separate Explanatory Statements for all participant groups. The Committee would like to see that you are thinking about your potential participants and tailoring Explanatory Statements to their needs i.e. an Explanatory Statement for the children in a class and a separate Explanatory Statement for the parents of the children involved in the research. Having a "one size fits all" attitude to your participants is incorrect and naturally, the language in the children's Explanatory Statement will differ markedly from that of Explanatory Statement for the parents.
Be specific about withdrawing from research at anytime, i.e. for anonymous surveys, participants can only withdraw their participation before submitting their data. MUHREC advise that you do not mislead your potential participants by stating they can withdraw from a research project at any time. If the project involves the submission of anonymous (non-identifiable) material such as a questionnaire, it should explained clearly to the participants that it will not be possible to withdraw once they have submitted.
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Extremely sensitive research topics
The Committee find that this can lead to insensitive recruitment proposals such as applications to ask participants about highly personal or painful experiences. Put yourself in the participants shoes - how would you feel if you were asked a question about a sensitive topic? Do you think you would prefer not to be asked any of these questions?
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Focus groups and violating privacy
The Committee would prefer that researchers, in their Explanatory Statements, make it very clear that participation in a Focus Group may mean compromising their own privacy; potential participants will be sharing their opinions with others in a group and in doing so privacy is at risk.
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Form LR - Completing Form LR when the project is higher impact
Completing the checklist at the beginning of Form LR is mandatory. If you submit on Form LR when your research does not fall into the low risk category, you run the risk of having to resubmit to MUHREC on an appropriate Form which may delay your research. The Committee advise that you complete the LR checklist carefully and thoroughly before completing the form itself.
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Grammar, frequency of typing and spelling errors
Although not an ethical issue, the Committee find the frequency of typo's and spelling errors rampant. It is careless and researchers are presenting themselves (and Monash) in a unfavourable light. Participants want to be a part of research that appears confident and worthy and if researchers cannot spell correctly, it just reflects badly.
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Internet recruitment: Collecting identifying email addresses
It is frequent where researchers are collecting data with an online survey or questionnaire. Please note that often the online portal requires potential participants to fill in their email address (which is considered 'personal information' according to Victorian privacy legislation). Researchers should try and conduct this data collection medium in a way that does not require the disclosure of their email address.
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Legal responsibilities
The Committee finds that some researchers are unaware of the possibility of subpoenas on data i.e. Police can subpoena research data for use in prosecutions. When collecting data that maybe incriminating, include this information in the Explanatory Statement.
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Letters of Permission
Permission (letter of support) from relevant organisations, HREC's or Schools should be submitted to MUHREC on company letterhead. If you can only obtain permission via email, the Committee may accept this, but like any letter of support, it must have enough identifying information about the person and the organisation and the email address it was sent from.
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Not completing Section 6 appropriately (Privacy Issues)
The Committee sometimes find that researchers do not complete all the questions relating to Privacy Issues when it is required. Collection of any identifying information i.e. names, email addresses, opinions, signature on a consent form or other personal information according to Victorian Privacy Legalisation, requires completing question in section 6 (previously known as Form P).
If you are using identifiable or potentially identifiable health information without consent, the Committee needs to consider granting a privacy exemption. Please tick YES in the appropriate boxes in Q6.6 and complete the remaining questions to avoid delays in processing your application. Privacy exemptions are only granted by the whole Committee at a meeting and if the information you provide is incomplete, your application may be delayed until another meeting is scheduled.
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Organisational privacy
E.g., asking participants for information that may be confidential to their employer. The Committee would prefer that you give the questions or questionnaire to a senior employee to screen the questions first, so the employee does not disclose, to you the researcher, information that would be deemed 'confidential' to the organisation itself.
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Payment to participants
Form LR - For Low Risk research you can offer up to $75 cash (max) to participants for reimbursement for their time, travel or inconvenience without being concerned about participants being coerced into participating.
Form 1 - Researchers using Form 1 can offer re-imbursement of more than $75 but they should be aware of the information relating to the ATO guidelines. Please refer to the information sheet for more details.
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Personal safety concerns of researchers
For reasons of the personal safety of both the researcher and the participant, the Committee usually suggests that researchers do not conduct research in a participant's home. What alternative arrangements could be made? However, if that is necessary and to comply with OHSE policy, a risk assessment must be prepared. Please contact your OHSE consultant for more information.
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Privacy in the workplace
The Committee find that there is often a lack of understanding that confidentiality may be of extra importance to participants in a workplace. Employees often do not want their employers or other employees to see their data.
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Recruitment
Callista database (pdf 27 kb) cannot be accessed for research purposes.
You need to be aware of privacy issues involved in recruiting from a database, information already collected or data from a register. Some researchers may want to extract information from one database and match it with data on a another database (to ensure it's the same person). If done without seeking consent of the individuals, this constitutes a breach of privacy legislation.
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Research in Indigenous communities
The Committee ask that you seek advice from the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies (CAIS); this is their specialty and they can inform you accordingly. Please see the ATSI Information Sheet or contact Dr Lynette Russell at CAIS on +61 3 990 54200.
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Trans-border (interstate or overseas) data flow
Commonwealth and Victoria privacy legislation imposes transborder dataflow restrictions to ensure that personal information receives equivalent protection if it is transferred (whether physically or electronically) to a place where the legislation does not apply. You must therefore answer "yes" to this question if your research involves the transfer of any personal information, including sensitive information and health information, outside of Victoria (whether to another Australian state or another country). Information transfers include the transfer of information for processing, including processing by websites such as Survey Monkey.
You do not need to answer yes if your research involves the transfer of personal information into Victoria from somewhere else. However, you should be aware that some other Australian states and overseas countries have their own privacy laws and that you need to ensure compliance with these if you are collecting personal information outside of Victoria.
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Unexplained Acronyms
When applying to MUHREC, please define any acronym in full the first time these are used e.g., ICT (Information and Communication Technology), or ED (Emergency Department) etc. The use of unexplained acronyms throughout an application leads to delays in processing.
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Write in plain language / English
It is preferable that you assume potential participants know nothing of your discipline and are a novice in your field of research. Write your Explanatory Statement as if you are speaking to a lay person. Avoid acronyms (unless previously explained what the term means) and academic language. Keep it simple and concise.
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