Advice on changes to UWS Research Ethics Approval Processes

1. Background

From 1 October2007, UWS launched major changes to the human ethics review process andimplemented the useof the National Ethics Application Form (NEAF, for all research projects involving human participants being carried out by staff or students.

This advicehas beenprepared to assist those academic staffcarrying out research projects involving humans and, therefore, requiring ethics approval.

2. Purpose

This advice addresses the main aspects of the NEAF and guides staff through the process.

Who’s who in the National Ethics Application Form?

The Applicant / The person named as Principal Researcher 1
Principal Researcher / The person primarily responsible for the research. If there is more than one principal researcher, please fill in subsequent Principal Researcher subject fields.

3. Filling in the Form

To fill in the NEAF the staff member who is the first named (principal researcher / chief investigator)must establish a NEAF user account and complete the ‘My Details’ section. If there are other principal researcher/chief investigators or research assistants who will be involved in preparing the application, they must also establish NEAF user accounts before they are able to access the application.

Principal Researcher:

How?

Go to NEAF and Create a New User

Further principal researchers / research assistants who wish to edit the proposal:

How?

  1. Go to NEAF and Create a New User
  1. In order to be able to edit the proposal, other principal researchers / research assistants mustmake their name available on the NEAF system when they establish their NEAF user account.
  2. Make all information available – Option 1 as below – using UWS email account.

NEAF INVITE USER SEARCH function - a searchable directory for other NEAF users to invite me to access their proposals:
My firstname, surname, organisation, email address, and username
My username only
No details (i.e., none of your details will be included in this directory and other users will not be able to invite you to access their proposals.)

4. The Ethics Proposal

For each staff project requiring human ethics clearance, the first named principal researcher/chief investigator must initiate an applicationby creating a new proposal. (However, proposals previously created can be copied by saving with a new title.)

How?

  1. Click ‘New proposal’. This opens to Section 1 - Title and Summary of project.
  2. Enter a title for the project at Q1.1.1 to move to the next section of the application form (‘title’ is the only mandatory field in the form).

Q2.0.1 Name and contact details of Applicant

How?To populate these fields, click the blue button– ‘Copy My Details’. The principal researcher’s informationis automatically populated in this way (the Applicant is the person first named as Principal Researcher).

To edit the application, other principal researchers / research assistants will need access to it.

How to enable further principalresearchers / research assistants’ access to the proposal – Instructions for principal researcher / applicant:

  1. Click the ‘Save proposal’ button located at the top right hand side of the page.
  2. Invite further researchers to edit the proposal by clicking the ‘Proposal summary’ button and scrolling down to the ‘Invite readers/editors’ section. Click the ‘Invite’ button. (In order to invite researchers to read or edit the proposal, they must make their name or user name available to other users on the NEAF system (as above) when theyestablish their NEAF user account.)
  3. Search for the researcher’s details by entering information in any one field. To invite a researcher or a group of researchers to access the proposal, tick the ‘Invite User’ box next to the appropriate user name/s.
  4. Select the level of access (edit or read only) and click ‘Invite selected users’. This will trigger an automatic email to the researcher/s inviting them to edit / read the proposal.

Q2.1.1: Instructions for other researchers / research assistants:

  1. To get access to the proposal, all researchers / research assistantswill have established a NEAF user account and filled in the ‘My Details’ section.
  2. These researchers will receive an email invitation generated by NEAF to edit the proposal – a direct URL to the proposal is provided in the email.
  3. When the proposal is opened, second and subsequent principal researchers should go to Q2.1.1. To populate these fields, click the blue button– ‘Copy My Details’. The researcher informationis automatically populated in this way.
  4. Note: Only one person at a time is able to ‘check out’ the application for editing. Read only access is available at any time by multiple invited researchers.
  5. Note: NEAF does not use tracked changes facilities. Saving changes creates a replacement version.

Each researcher is able to review and change the application until it is ready to submit to either the Human Research Ethics Committee (funded research) or the College Peer Review Committee (unfunded research)

6. Submitting an ethics application

If the research is funded (internal or external):

  1. Save the NEAF application as a pdf document.
  2. Send a soft copyof NEAF and all core attachments to Human Ethics
  3. Forwardoriginal copy signed by all Chief Investigators to the Human Ethics Officer, Office of Research Services, Building K, Kingswood campus.

If the research is unfunded:

1.Save the NEAF application as a pdf document.

2.Send a soft copyof NEAF and all core attachments to College Peer Review Committee.

3.Check with College regarding the number of hard copies required.

The following naming convention is used when submitting a human ethics proposal: principal researcher’s surname followed by the description of the document e.g. jones_NEAF or jones_infosheet

7. For more information

Contact the Human Ethics Officer, ext. 2883,

The best way to become familiar with the NEAF is to have a go!

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