The UP Open University (UPOU) Faculty of Information and Communication Studies (FICS) organized a Special Masterclass featuring “UPOU Ethics Review, Principles, Policies, and Procedures” on Thursday, 3 March 2022.
Asst. Prof. Ria Valerie Cabanes, current Chair of the UPOU Institutional Research Ethics Committee (UPOU IREC), served as the event’s resource speaker. Asst. Prof. Cabanes is also the Program Chair of UPOU’s Master of Arts in Nursing Program, and the recipient of excellence, leadership, and governance award from University of the East Ramon Magsaysay (UERM) College of Nursing. She’s a nurse educator, a mental health advocate, life-long learner, and researcher, among others.
Mr. Jerry Donato, Masterclass co-proponent and former President of UPOU Alumni Foundation, Inc. (UPOUAFI), began the event by sharing a brief background about the lecture series. This is followed by an opening remark from Dr. Alexander Flor, Professor of FICS, and one of the pioneers of Masterclass. He acknowledged the cumbersome process of conceptualizing and working on a research proposal. He recognized that adding another layer of vetting, which is ensuring if one follows the ethical guidelines, could cause delays among students with deadlines on scholarship. He asserted that infusing ethical considerations should rest upon the shoulders of committee members. He further shared how ethics and integrity come together. An example is when researchers still use informed consent despite the constraints of the online setup caused by the pandemic.
“Ethics cannot be legislative. It is something internal…something that cannot be imposed on a student or researcher. It comes from oneself,” he stated. He admitted his reservations on how research ethics can be implemented and expressed his anticipation on how the thought leader, which he termed as a “competent resource person” and “focal person for research undertaking,” could shed light on that matter.
Asst. Prof. Cabanes started by specifying that the objective of her talk is to enable the participants to explain the importance of ethics in research, identify and expound basic ethical principles, be familiar with the UPOU IREC and its responsibilities, make a list of the requirements for an ethical review, detail the steps involved in submitting a manuscript for preliminary review, and apply their learnings when writing a research proposal and submitting it for ethical review.
She stated that people typically agree with the claim that research can change the world but do not usually assert the same thing about ethics. She argued that “Ethics can change the world, too.” She cited various examples of prominent research studies, which are distinguished and celebrated in the field of science, yet violate ethical guidelines, relying on the reason that “the end justifies the means.” Some of these include murders and tortures in the name of medical science, stealing body parts from graveyards to produce an anatomy book, and the use of slaves without utilizing anesthesia to achieve a breakthrough in the field of gynecology, among others. By enumerating these, Asst. Prof. Cabanes highlighted the value of ethics, which aims to safeguard the dignity, rights, and welfare of participants when conducting research. She mentioned the golden rule as a guiding principle in research is “do not do to others what you don’t want others to do unto you.”
In addition, she defined research and provided tips on what to include for one’s paper to be approved by IREC. She stated that research should be personal, educational, or professional by design which aims to develop or contribute to generalizable health knowledge. She emphasized the necessity of using scientific methods (i.e. theories, principles, accumulation of information) to deem a paper a research.
She elucidated the Memorandum No. OVPAA 2020-145, which requires research projects, particularly those involving human subjects, to undergo an ethics review, which will be done by a research ethics committee. In line with this, she communicated that UPOU IREC acquired its Level 1 accreditation from Philippine Health Research Ethics Review Board (PHREB) during the 39th Anniversary of (DOST)-Philippine Council for Health and Research Development (PCHRD).
She then proceeded by describing the structure and presenting the organizational chart of the UPOU IREC, and elaborated the value of having an ethics review board, which is to protect the researchers by giving them a sense of accountability; the discipline from data manipulation and misinformation; the participants’ rights and well-being; and the community as a whole.
In the same way, she specifically listed the functions of UPOU IREC which include: ensuring satisfactory review of submitted research proposals by following standard operating procedures; guaranteeing the protection of the rights and the well-being and safety of human participants in research; protecting the integrity of the scientific data; and issuing ethical clearance to approved research proposals. In other words, the said committee is also responsible for managing the workflow of the review of the researches ensuring they are “efficient, effective, transparent and ethical.”
She also pointed out that members of UPOU IREC are not reviewers. They usually tap experts to do the evaluation depending on the field. Likewise, she clarified that they also do not touch the technical aspects of the paper, which is the task of a student’s panel.
Subsequently, Asst. Prof. Cabanes walked the participants of Masterclass to the principles, policies, and procedures of submitting a paper for UPOU IREC review. She specified the tasks of the students, the Program Chair, and the UPOU IREC in different stages of the submission. She showed how to fill out the “Application for Ethics Reviews of a New Protocol” form, which can be downloaded from the UPOU website. An important tip she provided is to never answer the form when in a hurry or in a bad mood. She likened the filling out process with getting to know someone in a relationship, which entails time and attention. She also described the criteria on what makes a paper to be exempted from a review and to be demanded of an expedited review or a full review.
Questions during the open forum ranged from asking for tips on how to ethically conduct research studies in actual classrooms with minors as participants, clarification if those from outside OU can submit to UPOU IREC, and advice on how to handle cases of being commanded by research sponsors to alter data findings, among others.
After the certificate of appreciation has been awarded to Asst. Prof. Cabanes, Dr. Emely Amoloza, FICS Assistant Professor, Masterclass co-proponent, and the event’s emcee, stated that this Masterclass is the first step in helping students realize their goals. She also encouraged the participants to comply with the ethics review requirements, assuring them of IREC’s presence and guide as advisors who would be happy to see their students graduate and succeed.
Sustainable Development Goals
Written by Efraime Cruz
Edited by Myra C. Almodiel, Anna Cañas-Llamas and Maine Basan