Category Archives: Tri-Agency Policies

TCPS 2 (2014) – Revisions for Public Consultation

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In keeping with its mandate to ensure that the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans is a living document, the Panel on Research Ethics is proposing revisions to TCPS 2 (2014). These proposed revisions are the result, in large part, of the work of two sub-committees of the Panel. The Chapter 11 sub-committee was mandated to review the scope of Chapter 11 – Clinical Trials and to update its guidance. Assistance on the implication of the proposed broader scope was provided by a group of social sciences researchers whose work would be covered under the proposed revisions.

The Population and Public Health Research Advisory Committee (PPHRAC) was established by the Panel in response to comments received from public health and epidemiology researchers in the course of consultations on TCPS 2 in 2010. PPHRAC considered how the guidance in TCPS 2 could be enhanced or adapted to address ethics issues specific to population and public health research.

In addition to the proposals generated by these groups, the Panel is also presenting revisions based on requests for interpretation of TCPS 2 that it has received over the last two years. Finally, some of the proposed changes involved re-organizing parts of the guidance based on changes to Chapter 11. In particular, a number of provisions were moved to the earlier chapters of TCPS 2 where general guidance is provided. A guide to the recommendations is provided in Highlights of Changes.

Comment Submissions

To promote the transparency of this public engagement process, the Panel requests that you include your name and the following demographics with your submission:
1. Province or territory
2. Affiliation: university, hospital, college, community organization, other
3. Capacity in which you are submitting the comments: REB member, researcher, student, administration, research participant, representative of a group or organization.
4. Your main discipline: Behavioural Sciences, Biomedical, Engineering, Health Sciences, Humanities, Interdisciplinary, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, other.

All comments received (including identifiable information) will be posted to the Panel’s website after the closing of the comment period. If you do not wish to have your comments posted, please indicate that clearly at the beginning of your submission.

Please e-mail your comments by January 31, 2017 or mail them to:
E-mail: secretariat@rcr.ethics.gc.ca
Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research
16th Floor Mailroom
350 Albert Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 1H5

The TCPS was developed in 1998 by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), or “the Agencies,” to provide harmonized guidance on the ethical conduct of research involving humans. The Agencies formed the Panel in 2001 to interpret and promote the TCPS.

Changes to 2016 Tri-Agency Financial Administration Guide

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The Tri-Agency Financial Administration Guide was recently revised to reflect the participation of all three granting Agencies (the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [NSERC], the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC] and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR]).

Changes made to this year’s guide supersede the last version (2015) of the guide and are in effect as of October 1, 2016. The Summary of Changes is now available.

http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/FinancialAdminGuide-GuideAdminFinancier/index_eng.asp 

 

Open Access Publishing–Policies, Requirements and Avoiding the Predators

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It’s no secret, the word is out:  Academic publishing has hit the open access high-water mark. To emphasize the importance of providing open access to research findings, a Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications has been established, which outlines a set of policy requirements for those applying for, and receiving Tri-Council funding. The policy requires grant applicants to include their plans for open access publishing and dissemination, and data management. The Tri-Agency policy also requires grant holders to make their research findings accessible to all via open access journals and repositories once that research is funded. It’s a subject worth taking a closer look at, as the world of academic research and funding agencies are most certainly adopting open access plans and processes at a rapid pace. These developments have prompted researchers and authors to consider where and how to make their publications openly accessible. Reputable and distinguished open access journals are out there, but at the same time, there are tons more that appear to be legitimate journals, but upon closer inspection they aren’t worth your time or your money. The journals (open access or print) that fall in the latter category are often billed as predatory journals or vanity publishers. Their main intent is to publish as many articles and journals as they possibly can, and take the money and run. Often, the editorial boards are suspect and many don’t incorporate a true peer-review process, which can lead to all sorts of problems for the author down the road, including how these publications will look to the eyes of a future grant review panel.

One way to avoid the predatory publisher is to begin by conducting your own investigation and evaluation. Below you will find some resources compiled by Western Libraries that will help you make an informed decision on where to find the most reputable open access publisher.

The following questions can be used as guidelines when you are evaluating open access journals.

Publisher level
Is the publisher a member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)?OASPA consists of a group of open access publishers, which are recognized for promoting and advocating open access publishing. Please see the list of OASPA members here. Newer publishers are not listed in OASPA, so it will be more appropriate to evaluate them based on their reputation in the related academic community.

Is the publisher a questionable open access publisher? Jeffrey Beall, an academic librarian at the University of Colorado Denver has compiled a list of predatory scholarly open access publishers in his blog. See his criteria for determining predatory open access publisher (2ndedition) here.

What is the mandate of the publisher of the journal? Is it for-profit or not-for-profit? The mandate of the publisher often can be found on their website. Not-for-profit publishers may have deeper commitment to open access, as they focus on scholarship and the dissemination of information rather than profit.

Journal level

Is the journal listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? DOAJ has an established quality control process to ensure the quality of the journals being included. For the selection criteria, please refer to their webpage.

Does the journal have an impact factor? How high is the impact factor? For some newer open access journals, impact factor may not be available.

Are the peer review guidelines posted on the journal’s website? Is it a blind peer review (or anonymous peer review) in which the reviewers’ and author’s identities are kept secret from each other? Or is it an open peer review in which the identities of the reviewers are transparent to the author? Blind peer review is traditionally considered as the trademark for scientific publishing.

How qualified is the editorial board of the journal? You can check the editorial board members’ profiles if they are available on the journal’s site, or you can do some research on their research backgrounds on the Internet.

Is the journal indexed in major databases or index services? Check Ulrichs Global Serials Directory and sometimes the journal’s website for that information.

How many issues have been published since the journal started? It is useful to review the current and past issues of the journal to get a quick snapshot of the publication history of the journal.

Article level

Check the authors of several articles published in several issues. Are these articles written by a single author or different authors? This can help to see the pool of article submittors of the journal.

Scan through some articles published in several issues. Does the content make sense? Are the articles well-written?

If the author is listed with some affiliation, check the affiliation’s background. If it is an institution or a university, is the affiliated institution or university a reputable one? Does it have a program in the field the article is written about? Check their website for this kind of information.

Check the total cites (number of times being cited by others) for some articles published in several issues. Are these articles being cited reasonably frequently by others in the field, given the time since they were published? There are different places where you can check the total cites for articles. Web of Science has total cites if the article is indexed there. If you need help finding this information, you can contact a subject librarian.

Additional resources:

Tri-Agency Statement of Principles: Digital Data Management

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Canada’s three federal research granting agencies—the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and SSHRC—have adopted the Tri-Agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management as an important step towards strengthening research data management in Canada and maintaining Canada’s research excellence.

The Statement is the result of targeted community engagement, and will serve as the basis for the continuing work of the agencies on the renewal of their data management policies. It recognizes that different stakeholders in Canada’s research system have different roles and responsibilities, and that all parts of the system must work together in order to ensure that Canada maintains international best practices in the preservation, accessibility and reuse of research data.

What is the Tri-Agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management?

The Statement outlines the agencies’ overarching expectations for research data management and the roles of researchers, research institutions, research communities, and research funders in supporting data management. It complements and builds upon existing agency policies, and will serve as a guide to assist the research community in preparing for, and contributing to the development of, Tri-Agency data management requirements. The Statement itself does not include mandatory requirements.

Because the research data management environment continues to evolve, the agencies will continue stakeholder engagement and review and revise the Statement as appropriate.

Learn more about the tri-agency data management initiative, and read the Tri-Agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management, at science.gc.ca.

CIHR Institute of Gender and Health Training Modules: Integrating Sex and Gender into Health Research

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Every cell is sexed and every person is gendered. Sex and gender considerations influence our risk of developing certain diseases, how well we respond to interventions, and how often we seek health care. When research fails to account for sex and gender, there is a risk of harm by assuming that the study results apply to everyone.

The CIHR Institute of Gender and Health’s new training modules are designed to help researchers and peer reviewers better integrate sex and gender into health research. The training modules are divided into three sections:

1) Sex and Gender in Biomedical Research

2) Sex and Gender in Primary Data Collection with Humans

3) Sex and Gender in Secondary Data Analysis

Each module is 30-45 minutes and comes with a CIHR Certificate of Completion. These modules will help reviewers learn how to identify sex and gender differences in the mechanism, disease or treatment under study; identify methods for integrating sex and gender variables in health research contexts; and assess a research protocol or publication based on the integration or omission of sex and gender.

Source: CAREB-ACCER, Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards

SSHRC Launches New Insight and Connection Achievement Reports

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The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has been developing a new approach to end-of-grant reporting that is more user-friendly. As part of this process, they have created a revised and more concise achievement report. This replaces the existing final research and activity reports.

The information provided in these reports is of great value to SSHRC as it is a vital input to future planning and strategy setting. It also allows SSHRC to:

  • promote social sciences and humanities research, and show how it contributes to a better future for Canada and the world;
  • demonstrate the impact and outcomes of the research it funds, and how the findings from this research are used to improve our quality of life, enrich cultural expression, and drive prosperity, equity and sustainability through innovation;
  • monitor the performance of its funding opportunities;
  • report to government; and
  • provide input for decision-making on and the evaluation of funding opportunities.

Beginning June 6th, 2016, new achievement reports will be available to Insight Development Grant and Connection Grant recipients. They will be in a survey format on Fluidsurveys, a secure web platform, and must be submitted within six months of the end of the grant period.

To demonstrate the impact of SSHRC-funded research, the information from the reports may be shared with Parliament, the research community and the public. SSHRC is committed to the protection of the personal information under its control. Refer to the attached Achievement Report Privacy Notice for more information on how SSHRC collects, uses and discloses personal information.

SSHRC will notify grant recipients when the reports are available on the SSHRC website.

If you have any questions or comments, contact corporate-performance@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca

Research Metrics and Scholarly Communication Tools available at Brescia and Western

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The Beryl Ivey Library’s Scholarly Communication page provides information on the following resources open to the Brescia community: Western’s institutional repository– Scholarship@Western (open to BUC faculty), retaining your author rights, and open access resources.

Western Libraries has created a new website for Research Metrics. Research metrics provides an introduction to various metrics and tools used to evaluate and assess research productivity. Types of metrics include article, author, journal, altmetrics (alternative metrics), and social media.

 

Panel on Responsible Conduct of Research Seeking Public Comment

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The Panel on Responsible Conduct of Research seeks public input and comments on proposed changes to the 2011 Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR Framework). The set of proposed changes is now available online.Please submit your written comments on the proposed changes via e-mail.

Comments will be accepted until April 8, 2016. All comments will be posted unless the contributor specifically indicates otherwise. Comments will be posted in the language in which they are received.

Contact information:
Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research
350 Albert Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 1H5 Canada
secretariat@rcr.ethics.gc.ca

New TCPS2 Educational Resources – Available Fall 2016

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The Panel on Research Ethics and the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research are creating new educational resources in support of TCPS 2 (2014). Reference: http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/resources-ressources/news-nouvelles/nr-cp/2015-12-22/

Education — The TCPS 2 tutorial, Course on Research Ethics (CORE), provides an applied approach to guidance on TCPS 2. It features interactive exercises and multi-disciplinary examples in a media-rich format. An update to CORE is being developed, and it will incorporate policy revisions introduced in TCPS 2 (2014). It is expected to launch in late fall 2016. CORE will be further enhanced by the addition of two new modules: Multi-Jurisdictional Research, and Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada. Both modules will be posted in PDF format until the launch of the revised CORE tutorial.

Interpretations
As part of its ongoing interpretation service, the Secretariat continues to respond to individual requests. A new set of TCPS interpretations will be posted in January 2016.

Evolution
TCPS is revised periodically in order to provide relevant guidance that keeps pace with emerging ethical issues. TCPS 2 was revised in December 2014, and work continues on areas such as population and public health, clinical trials, material incidental findings, and the appropriate review of cell line research.

The Secretariat continues to support two Panels – the Panel on Research Ethics (PRE) and the Panel on Responsible Conduct of Research (PRCR). For additional information on either panel, new educational resources, or further revisions to TCPS 2 and the RCR Framework, please contact:

Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research
350 Albert Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 1H5 Canada

 

 

image source: cohdra, morguefile

Information session on the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications–Presentation Now Available

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The presentation from last month’s (June 2015) information session on the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications is now available. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) held information sessions for the Canadian research community on this policy.

To view a recording of the information sessions:

To download a copy of the presentations:

Please visit the main page (science.gc.ca) where these sessions are posted.