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Open Research Practices

Ethical considerations

If you're conducting qualitative research with human participants, the way you structure your Participant Information and Informed Consent forms will determine how open you can make your data and other outputs.

Retrospective ethical clearance can be very difficult to obtain, so it's worth considering your data management plan carefully before you begin collecting data.

Instead of assuming that all participants want to be anonymous, and that they want their data kept under embargo and then destroyed, consider asking for their opinion--you may be surprised!

Sample questions for Informed Consent forms:

How would you like to be identified in the project datasets and publications?

  • (a) by my name [leave space for them to fill in]
  • (b) by a pseudonym [leave space for them to fill in]
  • (c) by a participant number [to be assigned by the research team]
  • (d) as "a participant" only

Do you give permission for your contributions to be deposited in [Name of repository] for future research and learning?

Please note that any other personally identifying information must be kept confidential to comply with GDPR, and a DPIA must be undertaken if necessary.

Always remember to ask for copyright transfer for participant contributions to the University of Galway to ensure that you can quote participants in your publications.

For further information, please see the University of Galway Research Ethics pages.

The National Office for Research Ethics Committees also has a useful introduction to practical aspects of ethics applications.