Plan outputs and publication: submit a research ethics application

Ethically, the requirement is to ensure respondent confidentiality and to obtain consent from respondents for the secondary use of data.

These two aspects should be dealt with in the participant information sheets and consent and / or assent forms as per the generic consent form provided by the HSRC Research Ethics Committee.

It is important to distinguish between the identity of respondents that should remain confidential and the information that they provide (the data) that should be made available for secondary use to the maximum extent possible.

Right: use the following wording

• “We will not record your name anywhere and no one will be able to connect you to the answers you give. Your answers will be linked to a fictitious code number or a pseudonym (another name) and we will refer to you in this way in the data, any publication, report or other research output. Your answers will be stored electronically in a secure environment and used for research or academic purposes now or at a later date in ways that will not reveal who you are.”  

Wrong: don’t use the following wording

• “An electronic copy of the transcripts will be stored in a password protected file for analysis by the project team only. As per the HSRC data preservation policy, the audio recordings and the transcripts will be kept in secure files for five years. Access to the transcripts will be restricted to the project team.”
• “Your responses will remain confidential, meaning that it will only be known to the researchers.”
• “No one other than a research staff member will be permitted to listen to the tapes.” and “After 5 years, all the data will be destroyed.”
• Do not promise that the data will only be used by the project team as this will prohibit data sharing.
• Research data is to be preserved indefinitely – not only for five years.