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Data protection, rights and access: Ethical review of research projects

A number of ethical requirements apply to the management of research data, particularly where the research involves human subjects. Ethical considerations include the purpose and nature of the research itself, the nature of consent obtained (for example, opt-in versus opt-out participation) and what data needs to be safeguarded during analysis and destroyed after its use.

The University subscribes to the UK Research Integrity Office’s Research Code of Practice. In addition, your college and school are likely to have their own research ethics committees or procedures.

Which research is subject to ethical review?

For your research not to be subject to ethical review, you would need to avoid the use of human participants or live animals, referencing individual subjects (people), and keeping identifiers for individuals. Where this is not possible data are still exempt from ethics review if freely available in the public domain or obtained through pure observational studies of public behaviour.

'Pure' observational studies:

  • are of human action that occurs in a forum open to the general public
  • are non-invasive
  • require no interaction with participants
  • do not identify participants

Professional societies representing particular academic fields tend to publish ethical guidelines. These require regular updating as norms, professional consensus and technologies change over time. In terms of data sharing, there is currently a tension between the risks of personal disclosure and the pressure to make data openly available as part of the record of research.

Writing a data management plan by Edina, University of Edinburgh, modified by Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/introduction.html

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PILOT by Imperial College London, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.