Ethics Application Failures: What Goes Wrong
Not one of the three is a failure of ethics. Each is a failure of process — a step skipped, a category self-assigned, a relationship unrecognised — and each cost far more than the shortcut saved.
How the source presents these
Read them as the source presents them: three illustrations chosen to make a point, not a sample of applications and not evidence of how often anything happens. Nothing here supports a rate, a probability or a typical outcome.
What they are unusually good for is the failure shape. Each case has a single identifiable decision point, and in each case the decision looked negligible at the time it was made.
Case one: a video, an email and an automatic routing rule
A part-time student was behind schedule. A demanding project management job and a young family had pushed study to last place — the ordinary condition of the part-time practitioner, not an unusual one.
A week-nine requirement was to view a training video on the ethics application process, then email the supervisor confirming it had been viewed. In haste, the student skipped the video and sent the email anyway. The chain that followed had no further decision points in it.
How one skipped step propagated
The video is skipped
Fifteen or twenty minutes saved, on a schedule already behind. The single decision in the whole case, and the only one that was freely made.
The confirmation email is sent anyway
The attestation is now false, and — more to the point — nobody downstream has any reason to check whether this applicant understands the process. The safety net is removed by the same act that saved the time.
The online application is completed without reading the detailed information
The material the video existed to explain went unread as well. The two omissions compound: no briefing, and no guidance notes.
One question is answered by reasoning rather than by reading
Asked whether members of an indigenous community were involved, the student answered yes — reasoning that some interviewees in the resources sector probably were. A plausible inference, made without reading what the question meant or what answering yes would do.
The submission routes itself
On submission the application was routed automatically to a higher-level ethics committee, whose requirements the student had not addressed. No human decision was involved, and no warning appeared at the moment of the answer.
Weeks pass, and it is rejected
The application came back rejected, with major amendments and lengthy timescales required. The delay was itself part of the damage — the weeks were spent believing the application was in progress.
The thesis cannot proceed
Without approval there was no lawful way forward, and the amendment timescales did not fit the remaining candidature. The student withdrew.
Case two: one field, wrongly self-assigned
The second case is the useful counterweight, because this student did almost everything right.
Researching social and affordable housing, she had viewed the training video and was on schedule, submitting the ethics application in week fifteen. Nothing about the preparation was careless.
The online form offered two options: submit as a student, or submit as a researcher. Considering herself a researcher — which she was — she chose that option. Student applications route automatically to the supervisor for review and authorisation before going to the committee. Choosing researcher bypassed the supervisor entirely.
The error surfaced only when the supervisor later asked where the application had got to. The blunder delayed the project by a number of weeks and affected the ability to finish on time.
Case three: the dependent group
The third case is different in kind. Nothing was skipped and nothing was misassigned. The study itself was simply in the hardest category: an evaluative study inside the researcher's own workplace, on the same team as the participants.
The workplace director required that colleagues be approached individually by the university supervisor rather than by the researcher, with a background information sheet sent first, and with the director notified before the researcher when a colleague agreed. The application went back and forth to the committee five times for amendments before approval, and the process took more than five months.
Its place in this set is as the case with no mistake in it. Two of the three failures were avoidable in a few minutes. The third was structural, and the cost was borne anyway.
What the three have in common
THE THREE CASES COMPARED
| Case | The decision | What it cost | What would have prevented it |
|---|---|---|---|
| One — the skipped video | Skipped a required briefing and confirmed it had been viewed | Rejection after weeks of waiting, major amendments on long timescales, withdrawal from the degree | Fifteen minutes of video, or reading the detailed information for the one question that was guessed |
| Two — the wrong route | Chose researcher rather than student on a self-classification field | A number of weeks' delay, and the ability to finish on time affected | One question to the supervisor before submitting, or noticing that the field controlled routing |
| Three — the dependent group | No error. An evaluative study on the researcher's own team | Five rounds of amendment and more than five months to approval | Nothing removes it. Starting earlier and designing the recruitment buffer up front reduces the rounds |
Case details are the source's, described as based on fact with fictitious names. The prevention column is analysis added here.
Three patterns run across the set, and they are more useful than any of the cases individually.
What the set actually shows
None of the three was an ethical failure
Nobody harmed a participant, breached a confidence, misrepresented a result or deceived anyone. All three researchers were behaving ethically throughout. What failed was process — the machinery around the ethics, not the ethics.
Every cost exceeded the saving, by orders of magnitude
Fifteen minutes bought a withdrawn candidature. One unchecked radio button bought weeks. The exchange rate between shortcut and consequence in this process is exceptionally bad, and it is bad in a way that is invisible at the moment of the shortcut.
Two of three were sprung by automated routing
In both cases an answer the applicant gave in good faith determined where the application went, without telling them. Neither error was detectable from the applicant's side until someone downstream noticed an absence.
There is a fourth observation worth adding, though it belongs to the reader rather than the source. In all three cases the loss was measured in time, and time is the resource a part-time practitioner has least of. The material's rule that research cannot proceed without approval — and that data gathered beforehand cannot be used — is what converts an administrative delay into a project-level failure. That rule is set out in Ethics Review and Approval Processes.
The failure modes, generalised
Stripped of their circumstances, the three cases contain four distinct mechanisms. Each one is easy to test for in your own application.
FOUR FAILURE MODES AND HOW TO TEST FOR EACH
| Failure mode | What it looks like | The test |
|---|---|---|
| Attestation without action | Confirming you have read, viewed or understood something you have not | For every confirmation you have given, can you say what the material said? If not, that is where the process stopped protecting you |
| Answering by reasoning rather than by reading | Inferring what a question probably means and answering the inference | For every non-obvious question, did you read the guidance for that question specifically, or infer from the wording? |
| Self-classification without checking the consequence | Choosing a category for yourself, your study or your risk level without knowing what the choice triggers | For each category field, can you say who will see the application as a result of your answer? |
| Unread routing rules | Not knowing which answers change where the application goes or who must authorise it | Can you describe the path your application will take from submit to decision, including every party in it? |
The four modes are drawn from the source's three cases. The tests are synthesis added here.
Preventing all three
The source's own remedy is a single sentence and it is worth taking literally: your university supervisor is an important stakeholder in your success, so consult and heed good advice. In two of the three cases, one conversation before submitting would have been sufficient. The same pattern — a warning stated once, in a single sentence, and skipped under schedule pressure — runs through Common Mistakes in Project Management Research.
Before you press submit
- Every required briefing, video or module has actually been completed, not just confirmed
- The detailed guidance notes for the form have been read, not skimmed for the fields you expect
- Every question you answered by inference has been checked against its own guidance
- You can name every category field on the form and say what each answer triggers
- You can describe the application's route from submission to decision, including who authorises it and in what order
- Your supervisor has seen the application before it goes, whichever route the form says it takes
- Where a question could plausibly be answered either way, you asked rather than chose
- The submission date leaves room for at least one round of amendments
- Nothing has been collected, and no participant has been approached
How the eight parts of the application itself are written, and which of its questions carry the strongest demands, are covered in Writing an Ethics Application. Every requirement, principle and list the ethics material sets out is indexed on one page in the Research Ethics Quick Reference.
What to carry forward
- The source describes these three as based on fact with fictitious names. They are illustrations of a failure shape, not evidence of how often anything happens.
- None of the three was an ethical failure. All three were process failures, in the machinery around the ethics.
- The single decision in case one was fifteen minutes of video. The consequence was a withdrawn candidature.
- Case two did everything else right and still lost weeks, on one field that read as an identity question and was actually a routing instruction.
- Case three contained no mistake at all. Some categories of study cost months regardless, which is an argument for starting them first.
- Attestations are where the institution stops checking and you start being responsible. Do not confirm what you have not done.
- Know the route your application takes before you submit it, and set a date to chase it rather than waiting to be asked.
Frequently asked questions
Are these real cases?
The supplied source states that the case studies are based on fact and that names are fictitious. Names have been removed entirely here rather than replaced. They are presented as illustrations to make a teaching point, so they support conclusions about how this kind of failure happens but not about how often it happens.
What actually triggered the rejection in the first case?
Answering yes to a question about whether members of an indigenous community were involved routed the application automatically to a higher-level committee whose requirements had not been addressed. The answer was reached by inference — some interviewees in the resources sector probably were — rather than by reading what the question meant. The source does not describe the tier system or that committee's requirements.
Why did choosing researcher instead of student cause a problem?
Student applications routed automatically to the supervisor for review and authorisation before reaching the committee. Selecting researcher bypassed that step, so the application sat outside the process with nobody expecting it. The field looked like a description of the applicant and was in fact a choice of workflow.
How much time should I allow for ethics approval?
The supplied material gives one figure — five rounds of amendment over more than five months — and it comes from the hardest category of application, insider research on a dependent group. There is no average, range or typical duration anywhere in the source. Plan on at least one round of amendments, start early, and get a realistic estimate from your own approving body.
What is the single most useful precaution?
Showing the application to your supervisor before it goes, whatever route the form says it will take. The source's own moral is that your supervisor is an important stakeholder in your success and that you should consult and heed good advice — and in two of the three cases a short conversation before submission would have prevented the whole sequence.
Can I start collecting data while approval is pending?
No. The supplied material is explicit that you cannot proceed without approval from the relevant ethics committees, and that even data gathered before clearance cannot be used in your findings. That rule is what turns a routing error into a project failure — the delay is not recoverable by working ahead.
References and source attribution
- Cooper, D. & Schindler, P. 2008, Business Research Methods, 10th ed., McGraw-Hill — the text the supplied source draws on for its treatment of research ethics.
- Quinlan, C. 2011, Business Research Methods, 1st ed., Cengage Publishing, Chapter 3 — the prescribed reading accompanying the ethics material.
- Swinton, J. 2009, 'Why bother with research ethics?', Journal of Community Nursing, vol. 23, no. 9, pp. 25–27.
- Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2007) — named in the supplied source as the instrument behind its data retention and responsible practice requirements. The code itself is not reproduced in the supplied material.
- The supplied teaching source: consolidated weekly teaching notes and slide material on research ethics, which supplies the three case studies described on this page, stated there to be based on fact with fictitious names.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- List every question on my ethics form that could change where the application is routed, and what each answer triggers.
- Draft the questions I should put to my supervisor before I submit my ethics application.
- Build me an ethics approval schedule that allows for at least one round of amendments.
- I answered a form question by inference rather than by reading the guidance. Help me work out whether to correct it.
- What should I do if my application has been submitted and nobody has acknowledged it?