Some new updates regarding MBA Project supervision

Some new updates regarding MBA Project supervision (from the supervisor's position):

1.     Ethics approval for the individual project-This to be done by the student with you named as supervisor and you will act as first reviewer. Please do not submit this for ethics review until it meets your standards - the ethics review team are not meant to be "marking" student work - so ensure that you are happy with research design etc prior to submission for ethics review. All applications must include a participant information sheet, consent form and all participant facing materials (e.g. questionnaires, interview schedules or scripts, social media adverts)

·     Please note that you must receive ethics approval from students BEFORE ANY DATA COLLECTION occurs (It is not acceptable to get the approval in time for the project submission due date after the data has been collected - this is academic misconduct).

·     Please consider the timeline for approval – The Ethics Review Team endeavours to review and return applications within 10 working days, but delays can occur and amendments are often needed - build this into the timeline of any project module.

·     If the project is the analysis of secondary data or literature-based then in most cases ethical approval is not required - not even self certification. Please do not submit these so as to prevent overloading the system. 

2.  Gatekeeper approval:

A gatekeeper is someone who is in a position of authority and who will (or will not) grant students access to participants. From an ethical standpoint our interest in gatekeepers is two-fold:

 Without gatekeeper permission the project may not be feasible.

A gatekeeper can in some cases make it more (or less) likely for participants to take part - hence changing the nature of "voluntary consent" - and if students have a gatekeeper then they need to include on their application how they will handle this.

 Gatekeepers often occur in educational research (headteachers), business research (business owners) and other similar fields.

 In a perfect world then gatekeeper approval would be provided before an ethics application is made but students often have a situation where a gatekeeper (eg. a headteacher) will only agree if ethics approval has been granted.  The following procedure was suggested: 

·      If possible, obtain gatekeeper consent (this can be in the form of a letter of agreement and does not have to be a "consent form" in the classical sense) and upload it as one of the additional documents on the last page of the application.

·     Alternatively explain how gatekeeper permission will be sought and who the gatekeeper is. Under these circumstances the ethics approval by the review team will be subject to obtaining full gatekeeper consent. You as supervisor are considered to be first reviewer of your own students' applications, and the responsibility sits with you to ensure this is completed. Ethics Review Team is currently working with the providers of the ethics system to enable an "amendment form" for submitted applications and once this is active, you will be able to submit it as an amendment - but for now it will be for supervisors to check this. 

3.   Additional Guidance and Support

The ethics sharepoint page has a lot of useful information so please check there but also feel free to contact Ethics Review Team. Ethics Review Team will shortly be updating the templates for information sheets and consent forms and will update other sections over the summer as changes to the system are implemented. Ethics Review TEAM also plan to do some "ethics roadshows" between now and September and am always happy to answer any questions. 

 

Please remember that the ethics process should be seen not as a tick box exercise nor as a barrier - it should be us working together to ensure that good research which complies with all regulatory frameworks gets done in a timely manner.

4.  Update on Project Proposal Form

To streamline the approval process, a checkbox has been added to the Research Project Proposal Form requiring students to submit the Online Ethics Form at the same time as the Proposal. Students must upload the Ethics Form in PDF format together with the Proposal Form to Canvas. This ensures that ethical considerations are addressed at the proposal stage. The updated Proposal Form is attached and will apply to all submissions from June 2026 onwards.