COURSE-BASED ETHICS APPLICATION

1. Please attach: 1) your course outline and 2) the assignment descriptions for all assignments potentially involving research with human participants. If you will provide the following guides to students, please attach them as well: 3) recruitment notices / scripts, 4) interview or survey questions or 5) customized consent forms.

Note: The information in these appendices does not replace your answers to the questions below. They enable us to review how you plan to communicate to your students about the ethics of their research.

2. A statement such as the one below should appear on your course outline attached. If it does not, this kind of statement should be included on the official research assignment description(s) given to students (attached):

Research Ethics

This course (or assignment) has obtained course-based ethics approval from the faculty research ethics committee. Whenever you perform research with human participants (i.e. surveys, interviews, observation) as part of your university studies, you are responsible for following university research ethics guidelines. Your instructor must review and approve of your research plans and supervise your research. For more information about your research ethics responsibilities, see the U of C Research Ethics "Information for Applicants," sections 3.0 to 9.0, inclusive: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/research/html/ethics/info_undergrad.html

3. Please describe how you will educate students about research ethics regulations and requirements. (i.e. class discussion of a certain ethics guidelines document, a proposal assignment requiring students to customize their own consent form, class presentations, readings, other types of exercises)

4. Please describe what research methods will be used and the range of topics. Will all students have the same or similar research topics, methods, or participants? Will there be a choice of two or three research methods, and if so, which ones? If there will be a variety of project topics and methods, what common features will be shared by all of them?

5. Please list the potential types of participants (i.e. fellow students, members of the public, workers at an organization), and describe the range of methods by which they will be recruited. Include as much information as possible about the media of recruitment (i.e. posters, email messages), methods of recruitment (i.e. type of snowball sampling methods, two phases), and recruitment message content.

6. Please describe the potential risks to participants.
Note: For a list of the possible risks, see section 3.0 of "Information to Help Applicants" http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/research/documents/ethics_info_applicants.doc Then describe the measures that will be taken to minimize risks. If participant confidentiality and anonymity are among the methods used to minimize risk, describe these measures in reply to question #8.

7. Informed Consent:

a) Could some participants be in a situation or power relationship in which they feel coerced to participate? Could some research situations limit participants' ability to carefully assess the risks and expectations? If so, what will be done to ensure participants are freely and fully informed before participation?

b) How will participants be asked to demonstrate their informed consent? (i.e. by signing a consent form, by completing the survey following the research information, by replying to an emailed consent form, by a verbal response to research information read aloud, etc.)

c) After participation, how will participants be given continued access to the full consent information in order to withdraw data, ask a question, or complain about ethical problems with the research?
Note: Even if participants will not be signing a consent form, we strongly recommend that students use the U of C consent form template http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/research/documents/ethics_consent.doc during the informed consent process because it covers all the necessary information. Please ensure consent documents name and identify the researchers as undergraduate students in a course in our faculty, and include your name and contact information.

8. Will confidentiality and/or anonymity of participants be guaranteed? If so, describe how.
Note: There may be situations in which participants complete anonymity might be impossible to ensure (i.e. small sample size, other focus group members, videos made public), or participants wish to be cited by name.

9. Data access, storage, withdrawal, destruction.

a) Who will have access to the raw data?

b) Where will the raw data be stored securely?

c) How, and until when, can data be withdrawn by a participant?
Participants' data withdrawal deadline should be set at a reasonable time before the assignment deadline. Some situations may make it difficult or impossible to withdraw after the data is initially gathered (i.e. international research, some online surveys).

d) When and how will data be destroyed, within policy guidelines?
Note that all students of the Faculty of Communication and Culture are required to retain their data for at least two years from when they submit final copies of their work, and at most five years from when they do so. If they need to retain material beyond the five-year limit, they will have to justify that to you in writing. The minimum 2- year retention is needed in case of an audit.

10. What form(s) will the research report take (i.e. term paper, oral presentation, potential future conference presentation)? who will have access to the report(s)? (i.e. only the instructor, all students in the class, posted publicly on a website).

Note: "Secondary use of data" is against ethics policy. Researchers will need to contact participants again to obtain their consent if they wish to expand their use of data beyond the terms of participants' initial consent. Therefore, please ensure that participants have consented to all potential future uses of the data. In consent forms or research information statements, list the potential research report types and, if necessary, their audience types (e.g. a public website, a term paper in a specific course, a report to university administrators, an academic conference presentation, a documentary film, a magazine article).