With the Office for Students (OfS) now encouraging institutions to publish the findings of their WP evaluations and share what works across the sector, the question of ethics has risen up the agenda and institutions are exploring ways to address the associated challenges.[1]

The University’s REAMS (Research Ethics Application Management System) is a highly intuitive system that adapts to your specific ethics needs based on your responses to a series of prompting questions. However, it can be daunting when approached for the first time and is more tailored to the needs of academic research (for which it was principally designed and by whom it is overwhelmingly used). Nevertheless, it can be used for non-academic research and evaluation purposes and this guide will help you decide when, why and how you should use it.

In the guidance document, we will answer the following questions:

• When/why should you seek ethics approval?
• What are the steps you should follow?
• What does all that technical jargon mean?

We will begin by explaining the difference between evaluation and research and list the criteria that need to be considered when deciding if you need ethics approval. We have then developed a flowchart that will guide you through the various stages and a glossary of terms to help with deciphering all the jargon. Throughout the text where you see a term underlined and highlighted in blue this indicates that you can find a definition in the glossary, which we have provided at the end of the guide.

[1] TASO (Transforming Access and Student Outcomes), a What Works Centre affiliated with the Office for Students, has produced an ethics guide to help address this problem: Research ethics guidance - TASO.