The CHED Ethics Committee has adopted an approach of assisted self-compliance, requiring researchers to apply their minds to the ethical issues involved in the project.
To this end, four broad categories for ethical focus have been identified:
- those directly affected by the research;
- those indirectly affected;
- protocols for data storage, sharing and protection;
- dissemination.
The guiding principles for all of these revolve around privacy and dignity.
Researchers' comments are encouraged and will assist as an ongoing developmental tool and to raise awareness of ethical issues in the Faculty. However, the researcher remains responsible for dealing appropriately with any consequences that arise from the research, and it is the researcher who has accountability for the research process.
Background
Proposed establishment of a CHED Ethics Committee: agreed at the HED Board meeting held on 2 March 2002.
In view of the importance of research ethics policy and monitoring in CHED, where most research involves human subjects, the CHED Policy and Planning Committee (PPC) had recommended that CHED establish its own Research Ethics Committee, rather than locating this function in the Research Committee as previously decided by the Board. Assoc Prof Saalih Allie was requested by the PPC to investigate current good practice in relation to the functioning of such a committee.
Proposal to Establish a CHED Ethics Committee
According to the document Ethics for Researchers involving Human Subjects: Standards and Procedures all research involving human subjects needs to be approved by a Faculty Research Committee (FRC). It is important to distinguish here between two separate categories of ethics issues, namely (1) personal ethical behaviour and (2) ethical research practice and to note that focus of the present proposal is the latter.
The nature of research activity in CHED was such that more often than not it involved dealing with people, very often students and colleagues. For example, the growing area of testing both on and off campus as well as aspects of curriculum development that may be regarded as still being in a research phase could be thought of as falling within the ambit of a framework that dealt with ethical research practice.
Although many of the Faculty based CHED staff, or those registered for higher degrees, may already be subject to their own specialist codes or faculty codes of ethics there were also a number of researchers in CHED whose accountability lay solely within CHED. Thus, one of the main reasons for establishing an ethics committee would be to fulfil UCT requirements for these researchers.
The initial brief of the committee would be to evaluate the present situation and come up with proposals that would bring CHED into line with current UCT practice. Without being prescriptive but based on the practice in Humanities it would appear that the committee would not act to "police" or screen all research but would set up a framework for reference and channels for referral and discussion. It was possible that some mechanisms would be required to ensure that researchers "applied their minds" to the issues in question.
It was therefore proposed that a five person CHED Ethics Committee be established, representative of the broad activity groupings within CHED with one representative from each of the following areas: Language Development, AARP, MEG, Faculty based staff and one from the two areas of Careers Development and Academic Staff Development.
Contact us
Alan Cliff
Committee Chairperson
Tel: 021 650 5027
Fax: 021 650 5045