FAQs

Ethics approval is required for all research projects involving human participants or human data, regardless of the risk level. This includes non-publicly available secondary data and social media data. 

If your project is not research, it does not require ethics approval. For more information on different types of projects, please see our table of definition: Is my study Research, Audit, Evaluation, PPIE.pdf [PDF 1KB].

If your research involves only publicly accessible data, it will not require ethics approval. 

If your project is low risk, applications are reviewed on a rolling basis and there is no submission deadline. Please ensure you give yourself enough time to revise your application, if necessary, before your study starts. 

If your application is moderate risk, you can find the Panel meeting dates with their corresponding deadline on our website. 

Please note, moderate risk applications are treated on a first-come, first-served basis, and making the deadline is not a guarantee of a space at the Panel meeting. 

Yes, if anything about your project has changed, you will need to submit an amendment. You can submit an amendment by logging into your Work Area in the portal, then clicking into your project and selecting ‘Create a sub-form’ in the left-hand side panel. You will then be able to select the amendment form. 

You can log in by using your Queen Mary credentials, using the username made up of three letters and three numbers, and the associated password. 

If your school does not have a DSREC, please select ‘Central QMERC (my school does not have a DSREC). If your school has a DSREC, but cannot review your application, please select ‘Central QMERC (my research is outside the DSREC’s remit)’. 

If you are applying via your DSREC, please get in touch directly with the DSREC for further information on their process. We have a list of active DSRECs and their contacts. 

If you have ticked any of the options in section B1, the risk level of your study will be raised to moderate. This means that your study needs to be reviewed by a Research Ethics Panel, and the review timeline will be longer. 

You can consult the Panel meeting dates and deadlines on our website. Please note the deadlines are indicative only, and the Panels work on a first-come, first-served basis. Submitting your application within the deadline does not guarantee a space on the Panel. 

Your supervisor will need to log into the system and update their details. Once this is done, you can add them as a supervisor. Please see the full guidance for more details: how to avoid common mistakes [PDF 341KB]

If your collaborator or supervisor do not appear in the drop-down list, it means they will need to log into the system first. Please ask them to log in, then refresh the page and try again. 

Yes, you can share the form with collaborators or supervisors. Please select the ‘Share’ button in the left-hand side panel, enter your collaborator’s email address, and select the relevant permissions. They will then receive an email informing them a form has been shared with them. 

You can find the correct templates for the Participant Information Sheet and the Consent Form in the ‘Help’ tab at the top of your screen. 

The system will automatically track changes for you. You can simply edit your answers, and the system will show the reviewer what has been changed. 

No, you do not need to delete the old versions. You can indicate the version number when uploading the new documents, and the system will let reviewers know which documents have been newly uploaded. 

You can submit those forms by creating a sub-form on the system. To do so, go into your project, then click on ‘Create a sub-form’ in the left-hand side panel. You can then choose the appropriate form. Please see the full guidance for more details.

While it may be easy to consider social media as publicly available, especially on public platforms and forums, this may not be the case. The general rule of thumb is to consider the level of privacy which can be reasonably expected from the user. A user participating in a public conversation using a hashtag for visibility does not expect the same level of privacy as a user seeking support in a closed forum (for example, a private Facebook group you need to ask permission to join, or a forum you can only access through referral from another user). If it’s the latter, you would be expected to, at the very least, contact the platform gatekeeper to check their rules around using their content for research purposes. 

Yes, you still need to apply for ethics, as you will be working with human data. You will also need to check the Terms of Service of the platform(s) you wish to collect data from to ensure the Terms of Service allow you to use public content from the platform for research.

If you wish to access non-publicly available social media data, such as data from private accounts, closed forums, or group chats, yes, you will need to collect consent from users. 

If you wish to use publicly available data from users who may be considered vulnerable (children, people discussing sensitive subjects related to health issues, abuse, disabilities, etc.), your project will be considered moderate risk and you will be expected to do your due diligence in terms of collecting consent, be it from users, moderators, etc. 

If you are only working with public data, and if these Terms of Service indicate that users who sign up agree for their data to be re-used by third parties, used for research purposes, or re-shared, you may not need to specifically ask users for consent to use their data. However, as mentioned above, this depends on the level of privacy that can reasonably be expected from the users – there is a difference between public X (formerly Twitter) posts using a hashtag, and a private Facebook group you need to request access to. As a researcher, you are expected to take these nuances into account, and ask for permission to conduct your research where required, regardless of what the Terms of Service state. Additionally, if the design of your research allows you to (for example, if you are collecting data from a small amount of users), we encourage you to seek consent regardless.  

Please note, if the Terms of Service allow you to conduct research, but there are obvious gatekeepers (such as moderators in subreddits or private Facebook groups), it is likely to be expected that you ask for consent or permission from these moderators. 

If the Terms of Service do not explicitly state that you can use the content for research, you may be expected to collect consent, as you do not have permission to use the data. 

Please note when working with publicly available social media data, it is your responsibility to do your due diligence regarding the availability of the data. If any post you are using ends up being deleted or made private, you will need to either ask for consent to keep it in your dataset or delete it altogether. 

Yes – concerns around anonymity still need to be taken into account when using social media data. Some platforms have specific requests on how to use data for research (e.g., data must be used in its original form), or, in some cases, the data can be easily linked back to the user by searching for keywords. It is your responsibility as a researcher to check whether your data can be fully anonymised. If not, you may be expected to collect consent if using the data means the user can be identified. 

If you wish to use quotes or screenshots, concerns around anonymity are exacerbated. You may want to think about whether using these quotes or screenshots are necessary for your research. If they are, you need to ensure that you can anonymise the content so it cannot be linked back to the user. If that is not possible, you may be expected to ask the user for consent.  

franzke, as s., Bechmann, A., Zimmer, M., Ess, C. and the Association of Internet Researchers (2020). Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0. https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf 

Townsend, L., and Wallace, C. ‘Social Media Research: A Guide to Ethics’. https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_487729_smxx.pdf 

UKRIO (2024). Resources on the ethics of social media research. https://ukrio.org/ukrio-resources/ethical-issues-in-research-using-social-media/  

If the PI for the project is a Queen Mary staff member, you will need to obtain ethics approval from the Queen Mary Ethics Research Committee regardless of whether local approval is required and/or has been obtained. As the lead institute on the project, Queen Mary needs to ensure the ethical scrutiny concurs with our own ethics requirement, and that any differences in protocol are justifiable.

Depending on where research is being conducted, local ethics approval might also be required. The research team must check local requirements and the need to obtain local permission to conduct research. Please see our flowchart for more information: QMERC ethics review routes for collaborative research [PDF 96KB]

Yes, if QMUL is leading on any part of the project, then ethics approval from the Queen Mary Ethics Research Committee is required for that part of the project.

No, if QMUL is not leading on any part of the project, you do not need to apply for ethics approval from QMERC. However, please note it is your responsibility as a researcher to ensure that proper ethics approval has been sought and obtained from the relevant bodies before the research starts.

Yes, if you are conducting research, and especially if your study is online, there are still risks of fraudulent participation. You should consider where your study will be advertised, who will have access to the links to your study, and how you can prevent fraudulent participants from affecting your dataset. 

While no methods are foolproof, there are ways to try and prevent fraudulent participation from occurring. Ensuring the research team is up to date on information security and can recognise fraudulent activity is essential. Considering your recruitment methods can also help: how and where will the study be promoted, will you be using gatekeepers to recruit participants, is the monetary incentives provided proportionate to the work you are asking from your participants?  

Having clearly defined and worded inclusion criteria as well as specific monetary incentives (such as a voucher to a specific outlet only valid in the country of your research, rather than a generic gift card) can also make it easier to deter or weed out fraudulent participants. 

For online surveys, attention checks and honeypot questions (which are question only visible to bots) are also helpful methods to check the validity of your data. You can make it clear in your documents that failing attention checks will lead to disqualification from the study, which means their data will not be usable, and they will not qualify for any compensation. 

For online interviews or focus groups, having screening questionnaires to confirm participant eligibility before the research takes place can be helpful. Asking for the cameras to be turned on, even if only temporarily, can help you check your participants’ identity. This can be done before any recordings start to prevent participants from feeling uncomfortable. Using open questions can also be helpful to gauge a participant’s knowledge, and help you probe into any suspicious or vague answers. 

Finally, analysing data continuously can help you identify suspicious activity as soon as it is collected, and may make it easier to identify fraudulent answers from genuine ones. 

If you have identified potential fraudulent activity, you should stop data collection immediately, and contact the Research Ethics team at research-ethics@qmul.ac.uk. If possible, try and identify whether the fraudulent activity comes from a specific advertising place, as this will help you refine your recruitment method. 

If a participant has asked to be paid, but you suspect that they are a fraudulent participant, you should make it clear why you believe they may be a fraudulent participant – have they failed an attention check? Did they refuse to turn their camera on? It also needs to be made very clear in the participant-facing documents what constitute grounds to be disqualified from the study.

Mistry K, Merrick S, Cabecinha M, et al. (2024). Fraudulent Participation in Online Qualitative Studies: Practical Recommendations on an Emerging Phenomenon. Qualitative Health Research. 0:0. doi:10.1177/10497323241288181 

Woolfall, K. (2023). Identifying and preventing fraudulent participation in qualitative research. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 108:6. pp. 421-422. ISSN 0003-9888, 1468-2044