Is the ethics review process prepared for digital autonomy?

Abstract

The ethics review process is of primacy in ensuring research is ethical and the protection and rights of participants are maintained. Internationally, review ethics committees (RECs) are run independently and have different ethics review methods that they use. However, very little is known about what methods are used in the ethics review process, and the challenges and successes around adopting digital platforms for ethics review (DPER). The current study aimed to address this gap by inquiring whether the ethics review process in Kenya is ready for digital autonomy. A qualitative approach was adopted in this study, including six in-depth interviews with REC members and two focus group discussions with researchers. The in-depth interviews and focus group discussions entailed two sub-groups: one group included participants who mainly use traditional methods (paper and email) and the other group included participants who mainly used DPER. These transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis, informed by Braun and Clarke’s (2013) six-step approach. While generalisability is not assumed, the findings suggest that the ethics review process will only be ready for digital autonomy when all the challenges highlighted are dealt with and infrastructure is reinforced to support it. These findings imply that digital autonomy in the ethics review process is best effected when all research stakeholders are involved in the deployment, creation, and implementation stage, where institutions offer support and privacy, and security is upheld in all these technologies. Recommendations are made in practice for all research stakeholders, inclusive of RECs, researchers, and DPER deployers and developers. Recommendations are also made for future research developments on how to make the research ethics review process ready for digital autonomy.