ETHICS

When most people think of ethics (or morals), they think of rules for distinguishing between right and wrong, such as the Golden Rule ("do unto others as you would have them do unto you") or a code of professional conduct like the Hippocratic Oath ("first of all, do no harm"). This is the most common way of defining "ethics": norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

Many different disciplines, institutions, and professions have standards for behaviour that suit their particular aims and goals. These standards also help members of the discipline to coordinate their actions or activities and to establish the publics trust of the discipline. For instance, ethical standards govern conduct in medicine, law, engineering, and business.

Ethical norms also serve the aims of research and apply to people who conduct research or other scholarly or creative activities. There are several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research.

First, norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth, and avoidance of error. For example, prohibitions against fabricating or misrepresenting research data.

Second, since research often involves many different people, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work. For example, guidelines for authorship, copyright, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules. Most researchers want to receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen or disclosed prematurely.

Third, many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held accountable. For instance in cases of research misconduct, the human subjects protections, and animal care.

Fourth, ethical norms in research also help to build public support for research. People are more likely to fund a research project if they can trust the quality and integrity of research.

Source: Resnik, D. B, What Is Ethics in Research & Why Is It Important?. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. 2020. https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/index.c fm (last accessed: 28 January 2022)

HOW IS THIS RELEVANT TO YOU?

In the process of producing research you will engage in one or more research methods. For instance using scholarly texts as a source, doing interviews with a group of students or specialists, or user testing for an interactive sequence, game or animation.

All of these methods engage people in one form or another. These people will want to be properly referenced or in the case of interviews or tests may want to remain anonymous or unidentified (depending on the type of information you are gathering).

When working with participants and subjects who are human or animal (though this is unlikely in digital arts research) when gathering data you need to make sure that you adhere to the research ethics principles followed by Wits University.

→ FYI, WITS subscribes to the research integrity standards in the Singapore Statement which may be viewed here.

The School of Arts & Digital Arts Dept. generally work with the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) - non-medical - which involves human participants and if the research includes social, educational and/or psychological behaviour or perceptions and personal data required by an institution. This excludes research activities at a medical facility; e.g. hospitals, clinics, research labs, pharmacies, etc.

Broadly speaking this involves:

● full disclosure (telling them about the research),

● non-coercion,

● consideration of privacy issues.

ETHICS CLEARANCE PROCESS _

All students submitting research, Honours & MA MUST get ethics clearance for their final examinable research submissions. Getting ethics clearances is done in the following steps:

STEP 1: Attend Ethics Training Workshops, a certificate of attendance must accompany your ethics application. It is very important that this is done before your research proposal is complete.

STEP 2: Apply for Ethics Clearance, you must submit your research for ethics clearance. This is done first to an ethics panel at the Wits School of Arts, and once your application has been checked and approved by this panel it is sent from here to Faculty HREC (non-medical) for approval and the generation of an ethics certificate.

→ See Appendix C for dates on which you can submit to the respective WSOA & Faculty panels.

It is vitally important you get clearance before you submit your final research. It is very likely that the WSOA panel will ask for changes or updates - so make sure it get to them in good time so that additions can be made for a possible second round of approval before it does to the Faculty.

→ For MA’s ethics clearance is applied for using your research proposal, so wait until your proposal is complete and approved.

STEP 3: Ethics Clearance Certificate Number on your Final Submission, if you have done both steps 1 and 2 successfully you will receive a unique ethics clearance certificate and number which must be visible on the title page of your final research submission.

→ Research cannot be examined without it!

Ethics Workshop: Research Ethics Training & Applying for Ethics Clearance - Non-Medical

This workshop has two components:

PART 1 (3 hours) comprises formal training on research ethics, with a particular emphasis on social science research. This training is content based. There is a formal written assignment following this workshop. Successful completion of this assignment will allow participants to receive a Certificate of Competence in Research Ethics.

PART 2 (1 hour) describes how to apply for ethics clearance to the University Research Ethics Committee (Non-Medical) or to school ethics committees. This workshop will be relevant to Honours, Masters, PhD students as well as staff dealing with human subjects in their research projects.

2023 Ethics Information

Please visit the following Wits University site for all you need to know about Non-Medical Human Research Ethics process and needs: https://www.wits.ac.za/research/researcher-support/research-eth ics/ethics-committees/

5.2. PLAGIARISM

What It Is And How To Avoid It

According to the Wits Student Plagiarism Policy (2018), plagiarism is the failure to acknowledge the ideas and writing of others and the presentation of other’s ideas as one's own. The definition includes intention and unintentional failure.

Plagiarism is a serious form of academic dishonesty which is not permitted by Wits University in any circumstances.

The best way to avoid plagiarism is to understand when to give credit to another person or source. It is essentially anything that is not your own words or your own idea. Give credit to your source in all of the following situations:

● You directly quote a source - a text, a movie, an interview, etc.

● You borrow an idea from a source - you don’t quote the source directly, but you do integrate the idea from the source into your work or argument development.

● You paraphrase or summarise a source - when you give an overview of an idea or subject that you found outabout in another source.

● If you gain information from interviewing a person or from a class lecture.

● When you use diagrams, illustrations, or other images that you did not create yourself.

● Radio broadcasts, movies, podcasts.

● Things that are not common knowledge.

You do not need to cite any of the following types of information:

● Your own ideas and experiences.

● Common knowledge - be careful here. If you're in doubt, cite it.

● Results of lab experiments that you gathered yourself.

● Your own artwork, illustrations, diagrams, etc.

● Generally accepted facts - like eating too much will make you gain weight, sugar causes cavities

Source: Purdue OWL https://owl english purdue edu/owl/

5.3. AVOIDING PLAGIARISM & TURNITIN

There are a number of ways that you can ensure that they are not committing any academic misconduct or plagiarism.

→ Make sure that all your written and creative submissions are well referenced and written in a good academic style. It helps to learn the rules between different citation styles - ie. quotations vs paraphrasing and how to use them effectively. This is a good reference source.

→ All students at Wits must submit TurnItIn reports with every formal submission from essays and assignments to research proposals and dissertations.

You can generate TurnItIn reports via TurnItIn generator in Ulwazi (WSOA8000A for MA / WSOA4088A for Hons) see Section 6 on Ulwazi. And find out more about TurnItIn here in the Wits guides.

6. ULWAZI & THE LIBRARY: What You Need to Know

6.1. USING ULWAZI

ULWAZI is the online location through which you will access all your courses and programmes details. Not only will regular updates and information on the programmes and courses you are enrolled for be posted there, it is also used as the portal through which you will access:

● Notifications of classes, seminars & meetings.

● Notifications of expected submission & assignments.

● Repositories for text based and pre-recorded learning resources.

● Live online classes or group meetings.

You will also use ULWAZI to submit research submissions and assignments, in addition to using it as one of the formal mechanisms to communicate with your lecturer and supervisor. Since the onset of blended learning in 2021 / 2022 all students are required to join ULWAZI.

HOW DOES ULWAZI WORK? _

1. You will be added to Courses or Programmes that you are enrolled for - ie. Honours students will be added to all the courses they are enrolled in & MA research students will be added to an MA dissertation programme ‘course’.

2. You will be notified that you have added via your official wits email address i.e. mystudentnumber@wits.ac.za

3. You will need to login to ULWAZI using your student email address and password via https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/ . You can use it via a computer or mobile device - for more on this please see - https://www.wits.ac.za/ulwazi/

4. Once you are logged in you will find further information on how to use the space.

→ If you are having issues with you password and account please contact CNS (Computer Network Services) Service Desk , 1st Floor, West Wing, Senate House Building, East Campus Tel: 011 717 1717 / E-mail: ITStudentHelp@wits.ac.za

→ If you have issues or are having difficulties using ULWAZI please reach out to your supervisor or programme co-ordinator.

6.2. USING LIBRARY & UNIVERSITY RESEARCH RESOURCES

ACCESSING THE LIBRARY PHYSICALLY & ONLINE _

Students who are registered in the Faculty are automatically registered for access to all branches and sections of the University Library across all campuses.

→ Student Cards are required to access all libraries, to borrow books, pay fines and to make photocopies and computer printouts if credited in advance with money through the Kudu Bucks Terminals (KBTs), which are located in various places on campus. Please note that there are no KBTs in libraries and no copies for cash are done in libraries.

The Wartenweiler Library is understood as the main library and will probably be your main source of physical books and Journals for the period of study, however the Education, Engineering, Science, Cullen and Architecture Libraries are also available to you. You can see from the online catalogue listing in which library you book our journal you are wanting to take out is situated.

All physical and digital books and journals in the library system can be explored via e-Wits - the online Library catalogueaccessible and searchable from any Internet connection, on campus or remotely, at http://www.wits.ac.za/library via a computer and http://m.innopac.wits.ac.za for mobile devices.

→ Through these sites you can search the library, check library loan records, renew books and reserve books.

→ You will need to create a PIN the first time you access these sites. Please visit the Library’s homepage to find and follow the simple steps to create your PIN, and keep it for regular use, as described.

Electronic resources have substantially replaced current print resources in many disciplines, and are searchable. Electronic resources are licensed to the University Library for use by all current registered students and staff of the University.

→ These resources can be accessed remotely using your PIN, last name and student number.

In 2008, a new postgraduate facility, the Research Commons (RC), was opened inside the William Cullen Library Ground Floor reading room. All Masters and PhD students are invited to visit the RC, which is a dedicated postgraduate space supported by professional librarians. The RC is equipped with wireless laptop access to the Internet and laptops may be borrowed for use within the Commons. Research support services for postgraduates are developed on an ongoing basis.

TIPS FOR RESEARCH ONLINE_

Our very own Kirsten du Preez made in 2021 an excellent overview of how to explore and find research resources via the libraries e-Catalogue:

→ Watch it here: How to Research Online.m4v

The same topic however will be addressed in the MA proposal development seminars and in research groups for Honours students. Please speak to your supervisors if you are having difficulty accessing resources or finding what you are looking for.