Department of Computer Science

Learning and Teaching Strategy

Ethical use of Human Data and Human Participants

For each taught module or student project, a leader of the module or project supervisor must consider in advance what data will be used in the module or project, and where the data will be obtained from. The following scheme may be useful in this process.

Note that this is currently a work in progress - the material is under development and may well change over the next few weeks. It is also planned to migrate this information to the school web site once it has stabilised.

Ethical use of data

Explicitly state whether you are to use:
  • Synthetic data
    No ethical approval needed

  • Real non-human data
    • Make sure to check and explicitly confirm ethical source of the data,
    • If necessary, make an application for University Ethical approval ASAP.
      The module/student project may start only after ethical approval has been obtained for use of the data
  • Real Human data
    • Make sure to check and explicitly confirm ethical source of the data,
    • Explicitly confirm that the University Policy on ethical use of human data will be followed.
    • If necessary, make an application for University Ethical approval ASAP.
      The project may start only after the ethical approval has been obtained.

Be aware that only the following types of data do not require ethics approval:

  • synthetic data;
  • non human information freely available in the public domain;
  • anonymised human records and data sets freely available in the public domain

Third party evaluation
(COMP390/3/4/5, COMP391/2, COMP591/2 or COMP702 student projects)

Where appropriate, third party evaluation of software, computer systems or applications developed on COMP390/3/4/5, COMP391/2, COMP591/2 or COMP702 student projects, and any other customer feedback of such systems should be obtained in strict accordance with the ethical use of third party project outcome evaluation:

Ethical use of human participants
(Other than third party evaluation of COMP390/3/4/5, COMP391/2, COMP591/2 or COMP702 student projects)

  • Explicitly state if human participants are necessary and will be involved in the project;
  • If human participants are to be involved in the project, the University ethical review procedure will need to be followed. The project will require a suitable information sheet and consent form to be produced, and all participants should be given a copy of the information sheet, and have returned a completed consent form before taking part.
    Make an application for University Ethical approval ASAP.
    The project may start only after the ethical approval has been obtained.

Ethics Resources