Information for IOE students applying for ethics review approval can be found here.
- Postgraduate taught (Masters) and undergraduate students
All student research is required to gain ethical approval before starting.
Ethics review is required to ensure that the research conforms to the ethical standards expected by the IOE. It is also used to assist supervisors and students when reflecting upon ethical research practice.
When student research involves particularly complicated or sensitive ethical issues, it can be referred by the reviewers to the IOE Research Ethics Committee.
Ethics Guidance
- Student ethics application guidance
- Research with children - guidance on data protection issues
Details on the student reviewing process for postgraduate taught and undergraduate students can be found here:
Ethics Application Form
PGCE students
Research forming part of normal professional practice, for example when embedded in a PGCE programme, is not required to undergo a full ethics review in the same way as other student research projects. These projects can be reviewed by the student's tutor. Where the tutor identifies that the project is a substantial piece of research rather than part of professional practice, the above application form must be completed and reviewed by a tutor and another member of the course team, in line with standard student ethics procedures.
Risk assessment
All ethics applications should cover a risk assessment of the research. Researchers need to include an outline of the risk assessment in Section 8 of the ethics form. You may find it helpful to use the IOE's risk assessment template and you can include this together with your ethics application. However, completion of the risk assessment form in addition to the ethics application is not mandatory.
GDPR-compliant exemplars for guidance
The consent forms and participant information sheets should be used as exemplars only. Researchers are expected to develop their own forms and information sheets as appropriate for their research and not reproduce or copy the examples as templates.
All information sheets developed for research must also include a link to the UCL general research participant privacy notice.
For questions about information sheets:
- UCL Data Protection team: data-protection@ucl.ac.uk
- Postgraduate research students (MRes, PhD and EdD)
Guidance for changing methods due to the impact of COVID-19
- Guidance on changed contexts due to the Coronavirus: moving research online
- Starting or resuming face-to-face data collection for postgraduate research
Ethics Guidance
- Student ethics application guidance
- Research with children - guidance on data protection issues
- Guidance for supervisors and tutors on when to refer student ethics applications to the REC
All Postgraduate research students are required to submit their IOE Ethics Application Form to data-protection@ucl.ac.uk in order to obtain a mandatory data protection number for their research, before the ethics review. Please follow the links below for more detailed information.
Details on and forms for the student reviewing process for all postgraduate research students can be found here:
- Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) - IOE students require a DPIA if the project includes sensitive personal data and/or is likely to be high risk, which will be determined by their supervisory team. In the context of a student research project, the supervisor is responsible for ensuring the completion of a DPIA.
- Process for IOE Doctoral student data protection registration and ethics applications review
Ethics Application Form
Risk assessment
All ethics applications should cover a risk assessment of the research. Researchers need to include an outline of the risk assessment in Section 8 of the ethics form. You may find it helpful to use the IOE's risk assessment template and you can include this together with your ethics application. However, completion of the risk assessment form in addition to the ethics application is not mandatory.
GDPR-compliant exemplars for guidance
The consent forms and participant information sheets should be used as exemplars only. Researchers are expected to develop their own forms and information sheets as appropriate for their research and not reproduce or copy the examples as templates.
All information sheets developed for research must also include a link to the UCL general research participant privacy notice.
For questions about information sheets:
- UCL Data Protection team: data-protection@ucl.ac.uk