Determination of Ethics EXAMPLE

Request a Determination of Ethics Review

Please use this form to provide details about your activities to help the REB determine whether the project you are conducting is human participant research that requires REB review, or if it is exempt from REB review under the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS2).

For your reference, the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS2) website is:  https://ethics.gc.ca/eng/polic... 

Information related to some of the considerations the REB will use to make this determination can be found on the Research Ethics Office (REO) website at https://www.ualberta.ca/resear...

We encourage you to review the information on the REO website before submitting your form. Please note that it is the REB that determines whether a research project requires ethics, not the researcher.

At the end of this determination process, you will receive written confirmation on whether your project requires REB review, or if it is Outside the Mandate of the REB and does not require REB review.

Therefore, please provide as much detail as possible to aid in this determination.

Applicant info

PROJECT

Project Title:

· Community LAb Applied Study: Urban Design

Brief Synopsis of the Project:

· Community LAb is an applied study partnership between the University of Lethbridge and City of Lethbridge. Students in this Spring 2023 cohort will be focused on learning about land use planning, urban design and stakeholder engagement planning as part of the early stages of planning for the revitalizing of a small property in Lethbridge’s historic Chinatown. Students may participate in community engagement, under the supervision of the City of Lethbridge project manager and following the City’s Public Participation Policy.

Intended Participants:

· Engagement, should it take place, will be co-designed with and predominantly focused on members of the Chinese National League Society.

Goal of the Project:

· For the students to gain practical experience participating in the planning and delivery of municipal engagement activities. To do so they will co-design engagement goals and methods with members of the Chinese National League Society.

Is there a specific hypothesis being tested or quantitative/qualitative question being answered?  Is the main purpose descriptive in nature?

· There is not a specific hypothesis being tested.

Describe your research methodology:

o Interview and/or focus group with members of the Chinese National League Society, under the supervision of the City of Lethbridge, and informed by the City’s Public Participation Policy.

RESULTS

Who will the recipients of the findings/outputs be?

· The students will prepare a report for the City of Lethbridge. Should the City wish to make the report public, it will first be reviewed and approved by the Chinese National League Society.

Will the results be generalizable beyond the current population?

· The results will not be generalizable.

Will the results be published? If yes, where?

· While publication is not the explicit goal of the project, the possibility of future publications will not be ruled out.

What is the nature/intent of the publication?

· If pursued, the nature of publication would involve a generalized approach or aspect related to approaches to urban planning and public engagement which would be separate from the content delivered to the City of Lethbridge containing specific information about the participants.

Is the project funded? If yes, what is the nature of that funding?

· The applied study is co-funded by the City of Lethbridge and the University of Lethbridge Prentice Institute.

Would this project still be done, even if the results were not applicable elsewhere?

· Yes. The purpose of the project is to provide undergraduate students with practical experiences related to their degrees and future career goals. The skill sets being developed are very applicable, even if the specific subject matter is not as readily translatable.

Is the current project part of a continuous process of gathering or monitoring data within an organization?

· No. No previous work has taken place with the Chinese National League Society by the City.

Would the data be routinely gathered anyway, as part of organizational operations, regardless of this project’s intent?

o The work being conducted by applied study students would be routinely gathered by the City of Lethbridge as part of its normal operations. And should ethics approval not be granted, will still be undertaken by the City.

Please upload any supporting documents, such as a proposal and any data collection instruments, if available.