Why do I need to consider ethical

issues?
In undertaking any piece of work (whether it is for your degree or in the
workplace) it is important to consider any ethical issues that might be associated
with it. Brunel University and The British Computer Society now require all
students to consider ethical issues associated with their work.

Things to consider for your research project are:

• How you treat and respect other people that you might ask to help you in
undertaking your project, e.g. participants;

• Making sure that your project doesn’t waste peoples’ time, and is
therefore both worthwhile and hasn’t been done before; that you don’t
have a conflict of interests with a company;

• That all risks associated with doing the project, both physically and
mentally to you and others are highlighted; and lastly that the project
obeys standard moral codes.

You are required to write a section in your proposal explaining the ethical issues
associated with your project. You should refer to the Ethics Checklist to help
with identifying ethical issues.
What should I write about in the
section entitled “Ethical
Considerations of the Project”?
If your project has ethical issues, then these issues should be outlined and
explained. In addition, you should state how you are going to ensure your project
addresses these issues. For example: if you are going to use participants in your
study, you should say why you need to use them, how they are going to be
informed about what they have to do, and how you are going to make sure that
they are participating on a voluntary basis. Another example might be a project
that involves a high degree of potential risk; in this case, you could have done a
risk assessment and identified measures to ensure that the risk is as low as
possible.

Also explain how, as a student, you can work ethically on your project. For
example: respecting other people’s point of view; dealing with fellow students
and staff professionally and reasonably, respecting privileged project information
that might be gathered from a company or from individuals; and finally taking
responsibilities for your actions. For more information on what to include see the
British Computer Society’s ‘Code of Conduct and Code of Good Practice’
(http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.1587’)

If you do not have ethical issues that require approval by the ethics committee:

If your project has no ethical issues you should state why you think this is so For
more information on what to include or not see the British Computer Society’s
‘Code of Conduct and Code of Good Practice’( http://www.bcs.org/server.php?
show=conWebDoc.1587’).