Ethics & Integrity Frequently Asked Questions

There are a few different types of ethical review and approval which your project may need. Your supervisor or Department Ethics Lead (contact details can be found here) will be able to provide personalised guidance.

If you are a student, your project may be included under Module Level Approval, so you should check with your supervisor and/or module lead to see if this needs an original ethics application in the Ethics Online System (EOS).

If your project has been successfully approved under another ethical approval body (e.g. NHS REC, Ministry of Defence REC, Social Care REC) or another university, and you wish to register this project with Northumbria, you will need to submit a new application and make this clear – it will not be sent to reviewers but will be passed on to the Department Ethics Lead for their sign off.

As outlined in the Ethical Governance in Research Policy, different types of research project will follow different review pathways. To see the level of review your project will need, or to check to see if it needs approval at all, please take a look at the policy on page 9, here.

We recommend allowing up to 25 working days (roughly 4-5 weeks) for ethical approval to be secured. When you submit your application, the Ethics and Integrity team in Research and Innovation Services (RIS) will triage it and allocate to appropriate reviewers. Then it can take 20 working days for the reviewer/s to return a decision to you. Working days do not include bank holidays, weekends, or university closures. Please also note, this time allowance is paused if your application is returned to you with revision requests. You can check the timeline page for an update.

If you would like to request an expedited review for your ethical approval application, please contact your Department Ethics Lead (contact details can be found here), and copy in ethicssupport@northumbria.ac.uk. 

If you need a copy of a risk assessment template, please contact your supervisor, Department Ethics Lead (contact details can be found here), or contact the Health and Safety team at crhealthandsafety@northumbria.ac.uk.

You can also find further information on risk assessments on the Risk Assessment Strategy page.

A debrief sheet is needed for projects where participants may need follow up resources. This can include any aftercare resources (e.g. links to help lines or further support), or if deception has taken place within the research project. This provides clarity for participants and ensures they are not negatively affected by their efforts in the research project. You can find templates for all consent documentation on the ‘Documentation and Guidance’ page.

Researchers are advised to use Jisc for their surveys or questionnaires. Please refrain from using alternative platforms such as SurveyMonkey or Google Forms.

Researchers are permitted to use the Teams transcription function as this is the default resource for use across the university. Adobe Podcast Studio is also an approved platform to use for transcription, which allows you to both record and download the transcription and is part of our Adobe Creative Campus.

We strongly encourage researchers to only use these platforms as there are many other considerations at play when using a platform which has not been approved. To mention but a few, problems can include accuracy, biases and fairness, transparency, security and data storage, sustainability, ownership of data, IP considerations, and further security implications.

You can read more about AI tools on the Northumbria AI Hub.

Ethics applications submitted in the previous system were only downloadable until 21st October 2022 and we no longer have access to any records from this system as it is now unavailable.

The Ethics Online System uses single sign on so it will automatically use your university log on details to register an account for you. You may need to authenticate you log on using Duo. If this is not working for you, please try restarting your browser, or using an alternative browser. If problems still persist, please contact the IT Helpdesk.

Whilst in the Ethics Online System, next to a question, you can look for the ‘i’ icon which will provide further information/support if you don’t know how to answer the question. Additionally, students can consult their supervisor, and members of staff are free to contact their Department Ethics Lead (contact details can be found here).

If you are having trouble requesting your supervisor's signature, this probably means they have not previously logged into the Ethics Online System before. You should contact them asking them to log in to the Applicant Portal, then you will be able to search for them and request their signature.

Yes, you can. When you click 'View as a PDF', you will be able to select different options including include form documents and panel comments, etc.

You can share your application with your supervisor or a co-investigator at any time. While in the application, click 'Share' in the Actions Panel to the left of the page, and type the person's email address into the box. You can choose how much access to give them, for example: Read Only, Write, Submit etc.

If you are seeing a message which says, 'Upload Failed', try saving your form, logging out and then logging back in. If this is not working for you, please try restarting your browser, or using an alternative browser. If problems still persist, please contact the IT Helpdesk. Don't worry, your progress will be saved, and you won't have to start again.

If your application is currently in your Work Area but you are unable to make any changes, this is because there are still signatures on the current version of the form. You will need to unlock the form by opening any page in the form, clicking the ‘Unlock’ button in the Actions Panel on the left hand side, and then you will be able to make your changes. Please remember that you will need to sign the form on the last page again to resubmit your application – and students will need to re-request their supervisor’s signature as well.

If you have not received any comments on you application and it has been returned to you, please email ethicssupport@northumbria.ac.uk with your 4 digit project ID number and we will email over a copy of the comments.

All ethics reviewers have 20 working days to complete their reviews, and they also get a reminder to make sure they complete this within the time frame. You can check the current status of the review (including how many days are left for the reviewer to return a decision) in your Work Area under ‘Clock Status’ on the Timeline page of the application.

We recommend allowing up to 25 working days (roughly 4-5 weeks) for ethical approval to be secured. When you submit your application, the Ethics and Integrity team in Research and Innovation Services (RIS) will triage it and allocate to appropriate reviewers. Then it can take 20 working days for the reviewer/s to return a decision to you. Working days do not include bank holidays, weekends, or university closures. Please also note, this time allowance is paused if your application is returned to you with revision requests. You can check the timeline page for an update.

Please click the ‘Withdraw’ button in the Actions Panel on the left hand side of your Work Area, select your application, and withdraw.

You will need to submit an amendment to your original application.

Simply open your approved application, click ‘Create Sub Form’ in in the Actions Panel on the left hand side, and then choose ‘Amendment Form’ from the drop down. This will create a short form which will prompt you to outline the proposed amendments and highlight any ethical issues these changes may cause.

You can find further support with this in the ‘Amendment User Guide’ found on the ‘Training and Guidance’ page.