Friday, June 5, 2009

Ethics

Today I received the second comments for my Human Ethics Application for an interview I intend to conduc. I was so glad that the application was accepted for Expedited Review, or else it would take much longer. I have heard of so many frustrating stories about the application, a colleague had to amend for umpteen times before getting the approval. Alhamdulillah, after the second ammendment, I dont foresee anymore coming. The NEAF online form itself took ages to complete, there are 9 sections with such detailed questions that make you want to scream, if not puke. After a while of answering the questions that do not seem to end, you begin to ask yourself...."what exactly are they after???" They asked for such nitty gritty, you wonder what for. I spent about a week, in between other things of course, to complete the NEAF form. Before that, I have already spent a week or two formulating the Survey Questions and the Plain Language Statement, and other documents and forms. And I had to tick NO a long checklist to qualify for the Expedited Review that panels are among the university staff. Gosh...by the time I sent the stuffs to the Ethics Officer for our faculty, it had become a fat envelope. The first comment includes the NEAF form and my survey questions. They find that some questions were leading questions. There was a harsh comment regarding the NEAF. But funny enough, the comment was not meant for me, but for the past applications from the School of Architecture and Planning. It seems that they have noticed a pattern, a standard answers from the applications coming from A+B. It made me wonder why I was made the scapegoat to something I did not commit. Probably they think the comments will be picked up by the academic staff at A+B. But heyy..it spoilt my day reading that kinda comments. Then came the 2nd comments after I sent the 1st ammendment. This one was worst. There was a nasty, very cynical comment, and again pointing to the mistake of others. Why couldnt they state it kindly, anyway, how many times have we done this? I find that most of the academic staff here have not even submitted one. Weird as I need not make ammendment to that comment. But they still think my questions need to be more neutral. Ok, I accept that one. Huh, at last I am done with Ethics for meantime. Alhamdulillah.

1 comment:

Win said...

Salam and Hi Mimi..well at least you only had twice to amend..I had more but I found it amusing to please the committee with restatement of the already obvious things..if you call it nitty gritty my supervisor called it `pedantics' which I didn't know what it meant but now know it means `concerned with unneccessary details? oh well...