final report: lead institution: partner institutions

Final report: May 2018

Lead institution: The University of Melbourne

Partner institutions: RMIT University, Federation University

Australia, University of Wollongong, Deakin University and

University of New South Wales.

Project leader: Professor Barbara Bolt

Team members: Associate Professor Kate MacNeill, Megan

McPherson, Associate Professor Pia Ednie-Brown, Dr Carole

Wilson, Professor Sarah Miller, Professor Estelle Barrett and

Professor Marie Sierra .

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/

Support for the production of this report has been provided by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.

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Developing new approaches to ethics and research integrity training through challenges posed by creative practice research

iii

Acknowledgements

Research team: Barbara Bolt, Kate MacNeill, Pia Ednie Brown, Estelle Barrett, Carole Wilson,

Marie Sierra, Sarah Miller and the project manager, Megan McPherson.

Project reference group:

Professor Su Baker, Chair, Deans and Directors of Creative Arts, PVC Engagement, University of Melbourne

Mr Oron Catts, Director, SymbioticA, The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia

Professor Jonathan Holmes, Office of Learning and Teaching Discipline Scholar, University of Tasmania

Professor Rolf Hughes, School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape, Newcastle University, UK

Professor Welby Ings, Professor Graphic Design, School of Art & Design, AUT University Auckland

Professor Johnny Golding, Professor of Philosophy & Fine Art, Royal College of Art, London

Kate Murphy, Manager, Human Research Ethics, Secretary, Central Human Research Ethics Committee, The University of Melbourne

Dr Sandy O’Sullivan, Associate Professor in Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast

Associate Professor Barbara Polus, Chair, Human Research Ethics Sub-committee, RMIT University

Associate Professor Deborah Warr, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, McCaughey VicHealth Centre for Community Wellbeing, Academic Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne

Professor Diane Zeeuw, Chair of Visual and Critical Studies, Kendall College of Art and Design, Ferris State University.

Faculty of the University of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and Melbourne

Conservatorium of Music (MCM), The University of Melbourne.

Universities: The University of Melbourne, RMIT University, Deakin University, Federation

University Australia, University of New South Wales and University of Wollongong.

Ethics administrators in the faculty and also at university levels generously attended and

gave their time to the iDARE conference and workshops.

Finance: VCA & MCM Strategy Planning & Finance, particularly Claire Jin.

Evaluator: Dr Erich von Dietze, Research Ethics and Integrity, Murdoch University.


iv

List of acronyms used

AAANZ – Art Association of Australia and New Zealand

ACUADS – Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools

CPR – creative practice researcher

iDARE – Innovation. Design. Art. Research. Ethics

IMPEL – impact management planning and evaluation ladder

MCM – Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

QPR – Quality in Postgraduate Research

RHD – research higher degree

VCA – Victorian College of the Arts


v

Executive summary

This represents the final report for the Office of Learning and Teaching funded project

‘Developing new approaches to ethics and research integrity training through challenges

posed by creative practice research’. The project arose out of a realisation that with creative

practice research, a relatively new field of research in the university context, the current

cohort of research higher degree (RHD) candidates were negotiating ethics procedures that

their supervisors may not have needed to comply with in their academic careers.

The project aimed to develop a robust, innovative and ethically informed research ethics

culture in the creative arts and design discipline, by equipping graduates with the ethical

know-how for their real-world professions as artists and designers. The project was

designed to determine what resources might benefit RHD candidates, their supervisors and

ethics administrators.

A combination of quantitative and qualitative, creative art and design methods informed the

outcomes. Data collection took place predominantly across Australian universities and

attracted 116 respondents across all fields of creative practice: art, design, object and

interior design, sound, video, interactive media, architecture, music and music composition,

journalism, creative writing, dance, and theatre and performance, and the multidiscipline

approaches of creative arts practice. In addition to an online survey the project team

conducted interviews with 29 respondents. In addition to these conventional methods of

data collection, the project team facilitated workshops at a range of locations, which were

designed as experiential and active learning events, and the discussions therein also

contributed to the information and resources utilised to design the ethics toolkit.

As a result of the research aspect of the project, we identified a demand for additional

resources to assist creative practice researchers (CPRs) to feel comfortable with the ethics

procedures governing research in higher education. Both RHD candidates and academics

expressed a desire for these resources. For those RHD candidates who had successfully

negotiated an ethics approval for their creative practice research, the experience was a

useful one. Nonetheless the candidates were aware that they had great difficulty engaging

with the institutional ethical process compared with RHD candidates in other areas of

research. This drew attention to the need for a greater institutional knowledge about

creative practice research and the ways in which ethics issues can be negotiated.

In response to these findings, and based on factors identified through the interviews, the

project developed a set of case studies, which will appear on the project website as part of a

toolkit to be made available to all creative practice RHD candidates in Australian

universities. The toolkit also contains a handbook, resources and outlines of pedagogical

workshops that can be conducted with RHD candidates. During the research the project

team developed a community of interest: workshops were conducted in five locations


vi

around Australia and at the University College London, conference presentations (Quality in

Postgraduate Research (QPR), Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools,

International Conference of Asia Pacific Art Studies) brought the project to the attention of

a wide range of stakeholders, and the 2016 Innovation. Design. Art. Research. Ethics (iDARE)

project conference attracted delegates from across Australia. The project will live on

through the online toolkit, continuing conference presentations (including QPR 2018) and an

edited volume from the QPR 2018 conference.

In addition to the already delivered project outcomes, members of the project team are

each involved in direct discussion with their respective ethics offices with a view to devising

additional resources that address the distinct needs of each institution. With the

presentation plans for the 2018 Network of University Ethics Administrators’ conference, it

is the intention of the project team to promote the ethics toolkit, and resources therein, and

make these available to RHD creative practice candidates across all universities.

The project team was led by Professor Barbara Bolt at The University of Melbourne, in

collaboration with team members from The University of Melbourne, Deakin University,

University of New South Wales, University of Wollongong, Federation University Australia

and RMIT University.


vii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... iii

List of acronyms used ...................................................................................................... iv

Executive summary .......................................................................................................... v

Tables and figures ......................................................................................................... viii

Chapter 1: Context and aims ............................................................................................. 1

Chapter 2: Approach and methodology ............................................................................. 4

Project planning and team meetings......................................................................................... 4

Conceptual framework ............................................................................................................. 4

Data collection ......................................................................................................................... 5

Workshops as pedagogical tools ............................................................................................... 6

Mapping the field .................................................................................................................... 7

Sharable approaches and resources .......................................................................................... 7

Chapter 3: Outputs and findings ....................................................................................... 8

Findings ................................................................................................................................... 8

Short workshops .................................................................................................................... 13

The Creative Research Ethics Workshop (CREW) ..................................................................... 17

iDARE conference .................................................................................................................. 17

Outputs ................................................................................................................................. 19

International perspectives ...................................................................................................... 21

Community of interest ........................................................................................................... 22

Chapter 4: Impact and dissemination .............................................................................. 23

Conference presentations and talks ........................................................................................ 23

Project website ...................................................................................................................... 23

Sustainability ......................................................................................................................... 23

Contribution to knowledge .................................................................................................... 24

Chapter 5: Evaluation ..................................................................................................... 26

Chapter 6: Conclusions ................................................................................................... 27

Ethics and the broader research context ................................................................................. 27

Transdisciplinary discussion ................................................................................................... 28

Policy recommendations for creative practice research ethics ................................................. 30

References ..................................................................................................................... 32

Appendix A: References .................................................................................................. 33

Appendix C: External evaluation report .......................................................................... 34


viii

Tables and figures

Tables

Table 1: Student enrolments (undergraduate, graduate and research higher

degree) in Creative Arts and Architecture and Building disciplines in Australia,

2015

3

Table 2: iDARE case studies – issues and contexts 12

Table 3: Project impact and dissemination modelling (IMPEL modelling) 25

Figures

Figure 1: CREW Activity round table (iDARE conference, September 2016). 18

Figure 2: CREW workshop (iDARE conference, September 2016). 19

Figure 3: Wireframe of iDARE website. 20


1

Chapter 1: Context and aims

In Australia, all research involving human subjects, including artistic research, is conducted

in accordance with the National Statement on the Ethical Conduct of Research Involving

Humans (2007). The National Statement establishes a set of working guidelines for the

ethical conduct of research within Australian universities. The code is not meant to provide

a prescribed list of ‘dos and don’ts’; rather, it sets up an ethos or set of principles that

underpins the way that researchers engage with human subjects in their research. The

preamble to the National Statement provides the rationale for codifying a set of ethical

principles to oversee the relationship between researchers and research participants:

research merit and integrity, justice, beneficence and respect (National Health and Medical

Research Council, 2007). In other words, ‘ethics’ is about a ‘relation to other’ in both

principle and practice.

Creative practice researchers (CPRs) in the university – both academics/supervisors and

graduate researchers – whose research involves human subjects are required to observe

their university’s code of conduct for research and adhere to the guidelines provided by the

National Statement. Practising artists and designers working in the community are not

similarly constrained as there is no industry requirement for projects to undergo a formal

ethics review. Creative practice PhDs graduates in the field need to call on and use their

own developed sense of ethics to make ‘judgement calls’ when issues of an ethical nature

arise. It is this notion of judgement calls – and the knowledge and experiences in practice

that enable the development of ethical know-how and know-what in practitioners– that

inform this project.

At the same time as the ethical protocols established by the National Statement guide

creative practice and design research within the academy, a proportion of CPRs and PhD

candidates, particularly those that draw from the avant-garde tradition, see provocation of

the dominant ethos as central to their vocation and are resistant to institutional ethical

overview. Drawing on a pilot study of faculty staff, Bolt and Kett (2010) observed that some

artists see their role as contesting accepted notions, provoking and questioning ethical

boundaries in order to create uneasiness and discomfort. The notion that one of art’s key

roles is to act as a conscience for society, to provoke, to test boundaries and bring its

audience into crisis, remains strong in the arts community, among CPRs and among

graduate researchers (Bolt & Kett., 2010). Translated into an institutional ethics approval

context, this resistance can be challenging for supervising academics and ethics committees.

Research suggests that where there is a perceived conflict between the institution’s ethics

protocols and the work of CPRs, researchers may either ignore their ethical obligations or

change the project so that they don’t have to negotiate procedural ethics (Bolt et al., 2009).


2

The tension between creative practice research (aesthetics) and institutional ethics has

emerged due to the incorporation of the creative arts disciplines into the academy and the

development of postgraduate courses in creative practice research. In the fields of creative

arts and design practices, the growth of research degrees from the late 1990s stems from

when creative arts training became part of a unified higher education system. Over the

period 1989–2007, for example, universities offering creative arts doctoral programs

increased from 12 to 30, and enrolments in these doctoral programs increased tenfold from

102 to 1230 equivalent full-time student units (Baker, Buckley & Kett, 2009).

Table 1 shows the most recent data available across Creative Arts, and Architecture and

Building, the latter being included as it best aligns with the inclusion of design practice

research in the scope of this project (Australian Government, 2016a–c). These data

demonstrate continued growth in the areas of creative practice research. In 2015, there

were 324 PhD completions in Creative Arts and 114 PhD completions in Architecture and

Building across Australian universities. Actual enrolments far exceed completions, with 2349

enrolments in the doctoral programs in creative arts practice, almost doubling the figures

from the 2009 research (Australian Government, 2016), and 846 enrolments in architecture

and building. Not all of these completions represent research that would have required

ethics approval from the university or other institutional stakeholders. However, the figures

indicate a steady growth in the interest in institutional research and certification in both

Creative Arts and Architecture and Building. The bachelor degree numbers are included in

the table to demonstrate the flow-on effects of research agendas and changing university

ethics practices in Creative Arts and Design into the ‘everyday’ pedagogical practices in

undergraduate teaching.1

1 For example, the ethical process developed for undergraduate life drawing classes (with live models) at RMIT

University and all Creative Art and Design research projects undertake an ethics process at University of New

South Wales and Edith Cowan University.


3

Table 1: Student enrolments (undergraduate, graduate and research higher degree) in

Creative Arts and Architecture and Building disciplines in Australia, 2015

Course type

All student enrolments Commencing students Student completions

Architecture

and Building

Creative

Arts

Architecture

and Building

Creative

Arts

Architecture

and Building

Creative

Arts

Doctorate by

research 846 2349 154 451 114 324

Master by

research 106 1108 36 366 11 245

Master by

coursework 6992 5992 3039 2916 2238 2097

Bachelor

Honours 5348 3152 1952 1373 863 1,060

Bachelor pass 16,707 68,519 5705 26,456 3518 14,478

% change on

2014 5.2% 1.0% 8.0% 1.1% 5.0% 0.2%

Source: Combined data including all student enrolments, commencing students and student completions data

(Australian Government, 2016a–c).

With the goal of developing a robust, innovative and ethically informed research ethics

culture in creative arts and design, this project is both timely and responsive. The project

aims to do this by equipping our graduates with the ethical know-how for their ‘real world’

professions as artists and designers. The project focused primarily on three participant

groups that intersect in this research and pedagogical space: creative practice graduate

researchers, academic supervisors/researchers, and ethics administrators and managers.

Directly aligning with the Office of Learning and Teaching priority program ‘the

contemporary PhD’, this project addresses the gap between adherence to institutional

research ethics and the development of a robust ethical ethos for PhD graduates in creative

practice and design.


4

Chapter 2: Approach and methodology

The project adopted a combination of quantitative, qualitative and creative art and design

methods to fulfil the aims outlined in chapter 1. Data collection and/or workshop activities

took place across Australian universities and in number of selected international universities

in the UK, North America, Asia and New Zealand.

Project planning and team meetings

Regular team meetings were held fortnightly in the first year of the project (October 2015 –

December 2016, then moving to monthly meetings (February – October 2017) via Zoom.

The initial work of the team focused on the process of obtaining ethics approval at all

participating institutions, planning discrete activities at each institution and planning the

project conference in 2016. Face-to-face meetings with the research team were held in

September 2015, May 2017 and September 2017. All research team members attended the

conference in September 2016. Agendas and minutes were generated for each meeting. The

evaluator attended team meetings when available.

Conceptual framework

The disjuncture between what happens in the academy and what happens in the real world

after CPRs graduate was a key factor in the conceptual framing of the project. Whilst

graduate researchers working in the university are required to observe the university’s code

of conduct for research and adhere to the guidelines provided by the National Statement,

artists working in the community are not similarly constrained. Once they leave the

university, they are no longer required to gain ethics clearance for their work but are

required to develop and use their own sense of ethical practice to make ‘judgement calls’.

As argued by Ednie-Brown (2012), this need for graduating CPRs to develop their own

‘sense’ of ethics finds form in the concept of ethical know-how, drawing on the work of

Francesco Varela (1999) in Ethical know-how: action, wisdom, and cognition.

The concept of ethical know-how required that the team differentiate between the ‘know-

what’ of the institutional ethics process and the ethical know-how, or ethical expertise, that

one develops through practice. Ethical know-what revolves around the ‘deliberative rules

and procedures’ provided by the National Statement that provide the basis of the

institutionalised ethics approval process. However, given that there are no deliberative rules

in real-world practice and that graduating creative practitioner researchers are required to

develop their own sense of ethics and make judgement calls, this conceptual frame fitted

with the aims of the project. Ethical know-how, like creative practice, is situated,

improvisational and spontaneous, and grounded in immediacy and the specific tissue of

circumstances in the moment. Ethical know-how involves behaving with sensitivity to the


5

particularities of the situation, and allows us to identify similarities between ethical know-

how and creative practice research (Ednie-Brown, 2012).

In so doing, existing practice-based expertise is brought into a process of developing new

expertise as CPRs, which, as the project team has argued elsewhere, ‘involves (to

paraphrase and adapt Varela’s words): after acting spontaneously in a creative practice

context, to reconstruct the intelligent awareness that justifies (and better comprehends) the

action’ (Bolt et al., 2017). Using such a priori justifications or articulations as a stepping

stone for continued learning about how one practices, or approaches practice, can in turn

articulate the methodology integral to that practice.

The rationale and validity for adopting this conceptual approach is borne out by the broad

ranging survey of creative practice graduate researchers and CPRs, discussed in chapter 3

with additional details in appendixes C and D. The study revealed that, in the context where

creative practitioners are no longer required to gain ethics clearance for their work, they call

on colleagues or use their own developed sense of ethics to make judgement calls when

issues of an ethical nature arise. In other words, creative practitioners tend to rely on their

own values or the advice of their peers to know how to move reflexively when ethical issues

arise in and through practice. The framework and the tools that have emerged from this

conceptual framework are in keeping with this ‘reality’. In other words, in the absence of

the know-what, our framework is focused on developing the skills and sensitivities of our

graduate researchers to know how to move in the world.

Data collection

The project sought to document current attitudes and approaches to ethical oversight on

the part of academics, graduate researchers and ethics administrators through an online

survey and interviews. The data collected is analysed in chapter 3 of this report.

The online surveys, conducted over a six-month period in 2016, attracted 116 respondents

from creative practice research. This comprised 62 academics/supervisors (33 female, 28

male and one who did not identify) as well as 54 graduate researchers (37 female and 17

male) from 19 tertiary institutions across all fields of creative practice: creative writing,

dance, design, game design, film, theatre and visual arts. Many of the graduate researchers

described their practice as multi-disciplinary. Although the number of respondents overall

was pleasing, the team realised that ethics administrators were not responding to this

approach, something we unpack in more detail in the following chapter.


6

Apart from the customary demographic questions, we asked the following:

What do you understand by the term ‘ethics’?

Were the institutional ethical guidelines an important consideration when framing a research question or devising the methodology for a project?

Did institutional guidelines inhibit or enhance your research?

Were there any evident benefits to the research from engaging in the ethics process?

What principles do you look to or use in dealing with ethical issues in your independent creative practice?

Information about the survey was distributed to research partner universities, and emailed

directly to research academics with their university email address through heads of school,

directors of research and learning management systems where possible. The survey was

also publicised on social media (Twitter) through the Australian based Researchwhisperer

(approx. 31,000 followers) and Thesiswhisperer (approx. 33,500 followers). The survey was

also used to identify those who might wish to participate in a more detailed interview.

In the interviews, the questions above were the prompts to begin conversations. The

interviews were conducted between April 2016 and February 2017. The interviews used a

‘snowball’ self-selecting recruitment method (Lewis-Beck, Bryman & Futing Liao, 2004)

stemming from the online survey, and consisted of hour-long conversations via Skype or

face to face, which were recorded and later transcribed. These interviews gathered the

narratives of the supervisory and candidature ethics process experience and provided the

material on which to base the case studies outlined in the next chapter. In late June 2017,

the international reference group were approached by email with similar questions to

gather their experience in the international field.

Workshops as pedagogical tools

Throughout the project a series of workshops were devised and conducted. These

functioned both as information gathering – participants responded to different ethics

scenarios – and as pilots for pedagogical tools that might be utilised beyond the life of the

project. Two distinct workshop approaches emerged: a shorter version based on the notion

of judgement calls within the existing framework of ethics processes, and a longer more

experimental workshop that sought to develop ethical know-how and foster emergent

knowledge acquisition among a stable group of participants. The short workshops

emphasised and contextualised relational ethical decision making as experiential and active

learning opportunities. The workshops drew on the notion of ‘imaginative identification’

and required workshop participants to assume a role on an ethics panel addressing creative

practice exemplars. The exemplars were drawn from real-world practice so participants had

the opportunity to examine, identify and unravel the ethical issues involved, and propose


7

how the ‘researcher’ might address these issues in their research. These workshops were

delivered at a number of different sites with iterative content development, as lessons

learnt from workshops were incorporated into the format. The more extended workshop,

known as the Creative Research Ethics Workshop (CREW), was held over a period of three to

four months, and brought together a collective of CPRs guided by Associate Professor Pia

Ednie-Brown. The workshops were held in the months leading up to the Innovation. Design.

Art. Research. Ethics (iDARE) conference and continue to be held sporadically.

Mapping the field

The project team undertook the task of mapping the ethics process in Australian universities

that have creative practice research degrees. This was intended to assist the team in

understanding the ways in which RHD candidates first come into contact with the

institutional ethics framework and system, and to understand what types of support,

information and resources are available to them. It also provided insights into what

opportunities exist in the courses of RHD candidatures that enhance ethical knowledge and

comfort with formal ethics procedures.

Sharable approaches and resources

The project sought to address the needs of the sector by making accessible, customisable

and sharable resources widely available. A key output of the project is the toolkit, which

provides case studies, pedagogical models, and resources for RHD candidates, supervisors

and ethics officers. The toolkit also contains a guide, focused specifically on the needs of

CPRs at University of New South Wales, but is adaptable across other institutions; a library

guide as a way of sharing institutional resources directly aimed at graduate students and

their supervisors; and details of other resources.


8

Chapter 3: Outputs and findings

In this chapter, we report in detail on the outputs and findings of the project. It covers the

survey results, the case studies devised from the interviews, workshops processes and

conference activities, together with a summary of the guide to Ethical conduct in human

research for UNSW art & design research practitioners, and an outline of the sector mapping

findings. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the emergent community of interest

and the role of the iDARE website and toolkit in ensuring that the project discussions

continue.

Findings

Surveys

The survey responses fed into the recommendations for policy, suggested resources and

actual resources developed in the course of the project. They will be the basis for further

academic publications.

Creative practice academic researchers

The survey attracted responses from 61 creative practice academic researchers from 12

universities, 49 of whom were engaged in the supervision of RHD projects that involved

creative practice based research; of these 49, 41 had supervised an RHD candidate whose

project required an ethics approval. The survey sought information about how the

respondents experienced the ethics process, primarily in their capacity as a supervisor of

RHD candidates, and in particular any difficulties they had experienced, and suggestions

about how the process might be improved and resources that might be of assistance.

As for the difficulties experienced with the ethics process, 13 respondents had assisted a

candidate to consider making an ethics application, and for one of the following reasons the

application did not proceed: they advised the candidate to change the project (eight

instances), the candidate decided to change the project (24 instances), or after

consideration it was decided that ethics approval was not required for the candidate’s

research (21 instances). This demonstrates the role that the ethics approval process can play

in crucial decision-making regarding the focus of RHD research, and identifies the

importance of providing appropriate resources for both supervisors and graduate

researchers. In this report, the project team provides a snapshot of some of the responses,

with additional detail available in forthcoming publications.


9

Respondents were asked about the benefits of the ethics process. Responses were clustered

around the following key themes:

It clarifies research design and methodology: ‘… assists in refining the methodology of their research project and prompts them to think in detail, about exact what they are researching and how’.

It encourages an awareness of their responsibilities to research participants: ‘Students have the opportunity to reflect on their project, particularly the way that research affects others. It’s been useful, too, for researchers to understand that research involves respect, consent and clarity of communication’.

It enables them to develop a more reflective academic practice: ‘… an improved understanding of the implications of the research and greater insight into the value and consequences of the research’.

Respondents were asked what might improve the ethics process as it applies to creative

practice research, and responses included the following: ‘Given unlimited resources it would

be great if candidates/supervisors could present their proposals and discuss them with the

committees in real time’; ‘clearer exemplars of creative practice applications’; ‘a set of FAQs

for creative practice research’; ‘Human ethics applications for low risk projects should be

made very minimal or exemptions should be clearly articulated to candidates. A web tool

that can identify low risk applications would be useful’; and ‘More training for academics:

especially around the benefits of considering ethical implications. The ethics application is

not a threat to a researcher – it’s an opportunity to think broadly about the project’.

Creative practices RHD candidates

The survey attracted 50 useful responses from RHD candidates across 18 Australian

universities. A total of 42 respondents had faced ethical issues in the course of their

research and 32 had actually applied for ethics approval. Of the 10 who did not apply, one

changed their project, six decided that ethics approval was not necessary and three had not

yet reached the application lodgement stage.


10

In this snapshot of responses, we focus on what the candidates found helpful about the

process and what was more difficult. Respondents reported:

that being able to interact with ethics administrators was helpful: ‘Meeting the head of the ethics committee gave me insight into exactly what the panel would be looking for in the assessment of my application, and the accepted applications from my supervisor gave me an idea of what level of detail was required in my responses’

that many of the resources did not seem to be developed with creative practice in mind: ‘None of the information I read, however, seemed to have been written with creative practice as research in mind. I had no trouble understanding the principles of ethical conduct but little information was available to help me make my research practice ethical in a way that sensibly acknowledged the aims and methods of the research’, and ‘The person I spoke with at the ethics office also did not have a lot of experience in ethics applications in creative projects’

a desire to have access to examples relevant to their areas of research: ‘Past applications. A different application for creative projects – a lot of the questions were geared toward science and were inapplicable to my project’.

Not dissimilar to the responses received from academic researchers, many candidates

expressed the view that the most useful aspect of the ethics process is that it assisted them

in clarifying the nature of their project: ‘… made me consider my project in more detail at an

early stage of my research. It also helped me to be more concise with my language so far as

communicating my ideas with others in the community’ and ‘It made me think about and

plan my research in a more considered way. I had to imagine potential problems and

solutions, and this helped my field research’. For one respondent, the ethics processes and

procedures assisted them in being clear about their own boundaries when dealing with

participants: ‘I have clearer boundaries with my participants and I frequently fend off

requests by them and frame it as an ethical boundary that I can’t cross’.

Ethics administrator survey

The project team sought to include ethics administrators in the data collection and had

hoped that some would respond to the survey. However, this may have been unrealistic on

our part – we did not receive any responses from this group. On reflection, this suggests

that a different approach might have been more productive, perhaps through formal ethics

bodies and high-level research staff. Equally, it may be that our intervention is best made at

this stage of the process where we can use the data collected during the project as the basis

for engagement with ethics offices and committees. We have received widespread support

and interest from individual ethics officers and have begun negotiations with university

ethics administrators to draw on the research findings to establish ethics training programs

specific to creative practice research. This work will build more solid relationships in future.


11

Interviews

The project team conducted 29 interviews with creative practice graduates and academic

researchers, including academics who have ethics committee experience and advisory

positions. Most interview participants were recruited by indicating their interest during the

survey. As such, the interviews provide depth to the data collected by the survey tool. Each

of the interviews describes projects and ethics processes undertaken as an academic

candidate, researcher or supervisor. The interviews were sourced from diverse creative arts

practitioners with disciplines including art, design, object and interior design, sound, video,

interactive media, architecture, music and music composition, journalism, creative writing,

dance, and theatre and performance, and the multidiscipline approaches of creative arts

practice. The interviews are a primary source of data for understanding values, attitudes

and experiences of CPRs and the institutional ethics processes in the university. They have

provided the basis for the development of the case studies and will be drawn upon for

future publications.

Case studies

A diverse range of topics are covered in the case studies, including issues of consent,

dependency, power relationships, overseas fieldwork, working in diverse and vulnerable

communities, researcher self-care, privacy, observation issues and working with animals.

These categories are searchable in the toolbox on the project website, as are discipline

areas. The case studies describe the project undertaken, or supervised, some of the issues

that arose through the process of applying for institutional ethics, and some of the issues

that became apparent in conducting the research. The case studies are linked, where

possible, to resources including projects, theses (dissertation or exegesis), and research

outcomes of the creative arts practitioners and academics.


12

Table 2: iDARE case studies – issues and contexts

Case ID, researcher type

Discipline Issues Context

01, C art vulnerable communities, consent, dependency

overseas fieldwork

02, C creative practice consent, observation, power fieldwork

03, C photography power, dependency art models

04, A creative practice power, consent collaboration

05, A design and space, object, social participation

risk to researcher, trauma supervision

07, A creative writing, performance writing

vulnerable communities, risk to researcher supervision

08, A dance research and practice supervision, research and practice

09, A theatre vulnerable communities social participation

10, A creative arts general issues academic research ethics advisor

11, A journalism consent, research and practice journalism code of practice

12, A architecture/sound observation working in the public space

13, A creative arts supervision, animal ethics, cultural sensitivity, consent

supervision

13A, C art animal ethics animal ethics

14, A creative arts consent, deception social participation

15, C music composition Intellectual property working with orchestras

16, A architecture observation, consent working in the public space

17, A fashion, wearable dependency, Intellectual property collaboration

18, A performance, activisms,

research and practice social participation

19, C socially engaged research and practice social participation

20, A socially engaged vulnerable communities, dependency social participation

21, C creative writing risk to researcher, vulnerable community, conflict of interest

clinical support

23, C performance vulnerable communities, dependency, conflict of interest

social participation

24, C installation risk to researcher, cultural sensitivity fieldwork overseas

25, C media consent, deception social participation

26, C art consent, privacy medical imaging

27, C craftivism community engagement, intellectual property, consent

social participation

A, academic researcher, supervisor. C, candidate, graduate student.

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/2017/02/14/case-study-one-doing-creative-practice-ethics-in-painting-and-video-with-other-cultures/

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/2017/02/14/case-study-two-doing-creative-practice-ethics-in-art-theory-and-sociology/

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/2017/02/14/case-study-three-doing-creative-practice-ethics-in-photography-and-film/

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The case studies are hosted on a University of Melbourne website that holds the iDARE

creative practice research and ethics toolkit.

Short workshops

Creative arts research and ethics (seminar/workshop), 9 June 2016,

Waterfront Campus, Deakin University

This one-day program (outlined below) included a mix of seminar presentations and

workshop exercises run by Barbara Bolt, Estelle Barrett and Deakin Faculty of Arts and

Education ethics administrators. The sessions presented by Bolt and Barrett were video-

recorded. A total of 21 participants attended including researchers from several creative

practice research disciplines.

Barbara Bolt, ’iDARE project: Innovation. Design. Art. Research ethics’

Estelle Barrett, ’Emergent and subjective methodologies: Ethics and the unpredictable in creative arts research’

Kristin Demetrious and Kylie Koulkoudinas, ’Getting human ethics approval’.

The event was useful in bringing together ethics administrators and researchers, and

allowed for the two-way sharing of information. The Deakin administrators were keen to

expand their knowledge of creative arts research, of which, as they stated, they knew little.

A key outcome of the event was the illumination of how different creative practice research

disciplines present different ethics issues and ethical dilemmas that are specific to the area

of research. Feedback during and after the event indicated that this had been particularly

useful for ethics administrators. Other participants also provided good feedback,

commenting that workshopping with ethics administrators helped to dispel preconceptions

about institutional ethics as a mode of gatekeeping.

The professionally video-recorded material has been incorporated into the Faculty of Arts

PhD extra compulsory coursework unit and is also part of the material available through the

iDARE website. This video material could be used or extended as a pedagogical tool for

future workshops and ethics training.

Creative arts research and ethics (seminar/workshop), 8 September 2016,

University of Wollongong

An intensive workshop on ethics was held for creative practice graduate researchers and

academics at University of Wollongong as part of Postgraduate Week. The workshop was

delivered by Barbara Bolt and attended by 25 participants. The workshop, the first in the

series of workshops, offered a group-work approach that was used across the remainder of

the workshops in the program of activities. The workshop activity drew on the notion of

‘imaginative identification’. This approach required workshop participants to assume a role

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/dare-case-studies/about-the-case-studies/

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on an ethics panel in order to address ethical issues arising in creative practice exemplars

from real-world practice. Participants working in groups were asked to identify and unravel

the ethical issues involved in the case study and propose how the ‘researcher’ might

address these issues in their research. The group activity was generative, provoking intense

discussion, and participants reviewed the workshop positively. The involvement of and

advice from the ethics administrator was invaluable, and her capacity to provide examples

from other disciplines added richness and complexity to the conversations during the

workshop. One of the issues that arose during the discussion was how different institutions

interpreted the National Statement in different ways, with some more risk averse than

others.

Staff development, 6 March 2017, VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne

An intensive workshop on ethics was staged for approximately 100 creative practice

academics at the VCA and MCM as part of a staff development program. The workshop,

delivered by Barbara Bolt and Dr Grace Thompson, drew on the notion of ‘imaginative

identification’ and required workshop participants to assume a role on an ethics panel in

order to address ethical issues arising in creative practice exemplars from real-world

practice. Participants working in groups were asked to identify and unravel the ethical issues

involved in the case study and propose how the ‘researcher’ might address these issues in

their research. The group activity was generative, provoking intense discussion during and

after the session and the workshop received positive responses.

Creative arts research and ethics (seminar/workshop), 22 March 2017, RMIT

University

A two-hour workshop (that formed part of a strategies class) was attended by

approximately 35 creative practice graduate researchers from art, design and media. The

workshop, delivered by Barbara Bolt, drew on the notion of ‘imaginative identification’ and

instructed workshop participants to work in groups and assume the role of an ethics panel

in order to address ethical issues in creative practice exemplars. The exemplars drew from

real-world practice and participants were asked to identify and unravel the ethical issues

involved, and propose how the ‘researcher’ might address these issues in their research. As

the group was formed of both designers and artists, different experiences and perspectives

were evident. One noticeable observation from the workshop was how the participants

became more risk averse in their assessments of the project.

Bridging ethics and creative arts research (seminar/workshop), 12 April 2017,

Mr Lawley Campus, Edith Cowan University

The invitation from Dr Lyndall Adams and Dr Renée Newman from the Western Australian

Academy of Performing Arts provided further opportunities for dialogue and dissemination

of iDARE outcomes.


15


Estelle Barrett, ‘Part 1: Setting up relationality for research’, and ‘Part 2: Ethical know-how and Indigenous research’.

This event provided opportunity for robust and generative dialogue between ethics

administrators and researchers. We were also able to examine the sophisticated online

ethics application system that is used at Edith Cowan University. Barbara Bolt’s workshop,

that involves casting CPRs in the role of ethics committee members, opened interesting

discussions about the relationship between institutional ethics procedures and practitioner

ethical know-how. The involvement and advice from the ethics administrator was invaluable

and added richness and complexity to the conversations during the workshop.

The sessions on Indigenous research emerged from, and were an extension of, Estelle

Barrett’s paper presented at the iDARE conference and Indigenous graduate researcher

Janis Koolmatrie’s work on pre-ethics. The sessions were well received by participants, all of

whom knew very little about the protocols and ethics of doing Indigenous research.

Unfortunately, technical problems prevented the sessions form being video-recorded as

planned. On request, materials (including those presented at the iDARE conference and

PowerPoint presentations on the day) were provided to Edith Cowan University conveners

and administrators. We have received several requests from other participants for the

material on Indigenous research.

iDARE workshop, 26 April 2017, Old Law Courts Building, Arts Academy,

Federation University Australia

The workshop was held during the university Easter break and was attended by almost the

entire supervisory team and postgraduate cohort. This included five supervisors, six PhD

students, five Masters students and one Honours student. We were also pleased to

welcome one of the two university ethics officers for the day. The workshop, delivered by

Barbara Bolt and Megan McPherson, challenged the participants to engage with a number

of complex creative practice research scenarios and to put themselves in the place of an

ethics committee. The involvement and advice from the research ethics advisor was

invaluable and certainly added richness and complexity to the conversations. For a small

university such as Federation University Australia, the opportunity for participants to engage

in a creative arts specific and a situated ethics workshop on the campus was invaluable.

Without exception, students and staff delivered positive and insightful feedback regarding

the workshop and the opportunity to spend a day in a more informal setting with their

supervisors and colleagues.


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Judgement calls: ethical dilemmas in art and architectural research

(seminar/workshop), 13 June 2017, Bartlett School of Architecture,

University College London

This one-day PhD workshop hosted by the Bartlett School of Architecture focused on ethical

dilemmas in art and architectural research and practice. Both Barbara Bolt and Estelle

Barrett were invited by Professor Jane Rendell and presented as follows:


Estelle Barrett, ‘The Ethics of Intercultural Research: Part 1: Setting up relationality for research’, and ‘Part 2: Ethical know-how and Indigenous research’.

This event allowed Bolt and Barrett to extend and refine previous seminar and workshop

presentations, and disseminate updated information on the iDARE project to an

international and culturally diverse audience. The one-day workshop also included

presentations on ethics by both University College London researchers and administrators,

providing the project team with a rich insight into the procedures and processes that inform

ethics at both the Bartlett School of Architecture and Slade School of Art, as well as more

broadly at institutions in the UK. The feedback for both sessions was excellent (one

participant commented that the session on intercultural research and ethics should be

made mandatory at University College London). The iDARE sessions resulted in numerous

requests for information, advice and material, to be used for conducting ethical research in

culturally diverse and international settings.

Given the richness of the presentations at this event, and as part of the ongoing dialogue, it

would be useful to request that iDARE receive a copy of the papers delivered by other

participants on the day. As a result of insights gained at the University College London

workshop, an exercise built on scenario setting was included in workshops that followed,

which (together with other material) can be used as a pedagogical tool in future inter-

cultural research ethics training.

Ethics workshop, 4–5 September 2017, University of New South Wales, and

ethics round table, 4–5 September 2017, University of Wollongong

The workshop was attended by academic and professional staff from the University of New

South Wales Faculty of Art and Design, and Faculty of Built Environment. A number of

postgraduate research students also attended. The series of case studies presented

provided considerable, relevant and diverse content for four groups to consider, and each

provoked lively discussion. The group comprised both designers and artists, and

their slightly different approaches were evident, highlighting a continuum of practice from

teamwork through to the individual in the studio as a ‘sole trader’, and what responsibilities

this imparts in the professional, post-university environment. The latter was also a topic


17

raised at the Wollongong ethics roundtable, which was well attended by students. The

differences between what a university may insist on as part of its risk-aversion procedures,

and what an individual creative practitioner may encounter when fully professional, were

discussed. Both events were enlightening and provided development opportunities for

attending staff and students.

The Creative Research Ethics Workshop (CREW)

CREW involved CPRs from several universities across Victoria. Through a call for expressions

of interest, a group formed to explore relationships between ethics and creative practice

research. The exploration began with questions such as ‘What if the development of ethical

expertise was approached as an integral part of CPR? How best might we tailor a process of

creative, ethical deliberation? Could this help leverage an enduring cultivation of ethical

know-how?’

Starting in August 2016 with a two-day intensive workshop, the group continued and

expanded through a month of weekly gatherings inside the Occupied exhibition at RMIT’s

Design Hub. Practitioners opened up their practices for discussion and explicated their

approaches to a range of challenging, delicate and thought-provoking issues. This led to a

series of contributions to the iDARE conference, including an exhibition,

workshop/performative events and a conference bag/kit. Beyond these tangible outcomes,

the CREW developed a set of shared understandings about:

the intrinsic collectivity of ethics

the importance of slow negotiations of difference and situated particularities

the value of face-to-face dialogue as part of ethical deliberation

how an ethical disposition might evolve through cultivations of enchantment.

The CREW activities are documented online.

iDARE conference

The iDARE conference explored issues of ethics for artists, designers and performers

working in the academy, including pedagogical approaches to ethics education and

training for postgraduate students in creative practice. The conference was held on 27–

28 September 2016 at The University of Melbourne’s Federation Hall, VCA and MCM

Southbank. A keynote address was presented by Jane Rendell, Professor of Architecture and

Art, The Bartlett School of Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment, University College

London. An architectural designer and historian, art critic and writer, Professor Rendell

highlighted in her lecture the ways in which ethical concerns have arisen in the agenda in

current institutional cultures. Ethical issues such as the source of funding to universities by

companies engaged in unethical business practices have become manifest in universities as

http://www.aelab.org/the-crew

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/dare-conference-2016/


18

well as the built environment professions. This has led universities to address the issue in

new ethical codes, policies and procedures, as well as the establishment of think tanks and

commissions for debating ethical practice. Her exploration of her own ‘practice of ethics’

provided the entry point into these debates and set the tone for a series of self-reflective

encounters over the course of the conference.

Over the two days of the conference there were 41 presenters and facilitators, 14 paper

presentations, four activity-based interactions and four keynote addresses. Attendance

numbers were 90–100 throughout the first day and 50–60 on the second day. The evening

keynote address attracted 60 attendees. The Faculty of VCA and MCM generously

supported the hosting of the event in the Art School student gallery and numerous spaces

on campus. The University of Melbourne’s Macgeorge Foundation generously supported

Professor Rendell’s travel with a Macgeorge Bequest.

Figure 1: CREW activity round table (iDARE conference, September 2016). Photographer:

Kate Robertson


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Figure 2: CREW workshop (iDARE conference, September 2016). Photographer: Caitlyn

Parry

The interest generated by the conference suggested that an edited collection of the papers,

published as a book, would be a timely addition to the literature on creative practice

research and ethics. As a result, a call for papers led to the submission of 19 abstracts to be

considered for an edited volume on ethics and creative practice research.

Outputs

Project website

The project website is hosted by The University of Melbourne. It is designed to encompass

both the archive of the project and the toolkit as the ongoing usable legacy of the project

(Figure 3).

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/


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Figure 3: Wireframe of iDARE website.

Toolkit

The toolkit holds the case studies, workshop models and resources and guides. The case

studies page uses a tile menu with icons to signify candidate or academic researcher or

supervisor, to provide individualised access to approximately 27 case studies. The case

studies are searchable through the project issues and discipline areas via the categories and

the use of tags of the website. Wherever possible we have linked to the outcome of the

research. Images are used with permission from the creative practitioners.

The workshop models page contains the pedagogical resources of the iDARE workshops.

They are models that are adaptable for use in small and larger groups, in informal and

formal research training.

The resources and guides contain links to the resources made with the iDARE project, for

example the Ethical conduct in human research for UNSW art & design research

practitioners, and further customised guides from other institutions. This page also links to

key example documents from Australian institutions and has international links.

iDARE

ToolkitHowtousethetoolkit

Aboutproject

Workshopmodels

ResearchdocumentsEthics,final

report

Casestudies

ProjectTeam

Reference/partners

ResourcesandGuides

Researchoutputs

ConferenceArchivedBlogPosts

Book

Workshops

Sitemap

Articles

Programand

Abstracts

Evaluation


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Library guide

The platform of library guides in many Australian universities, SpringShare, allows university

librarians to share guide resources for specialised subject areas. The University of

Melbourne library guide is shareable, sustainable (with the library managing the page after

the life of the project), and customisable (with links can be altered to fit any university’s

collection).

Guidebook

The University of New South Wales guide Ethical conduct in human research for UNSW art &

design research was distributed to all University of New South Wales Faculty of Art & Design

and Faculty of Built Environment HDR supervisors as a PDF, and from them passed onward

to students in the first and second semesters of 2017. This distribution includes 70 staff in

the Faculty of Art & Design alone, with roughly 150 HDRs. As University of New South Wales

has extended ethics research clearance to Honours research projects, the guide is also

distributed to Honours students as needed. In 2017 the guidebook was distributed to

approximately 20 students (of the 270 Honours student cohort).

Early in the text, the guidebook addresses the broader question of why ethics clearance is

needed, given that outcomes of the project survey revealed that students often altered

their projects, or were advised to do so by their supervisors, rather than go through an

ethics application procedure. The guidebook sought to address this anxiety about the

process and to provide a counter view to ethics as a bureaucratic burden, instead

contextualising it as a part of responsible practice. It contains short sections on respect;

merit, integrity and justice; and practical sections on minimising and managing risk; as well

as when and why ethical review is needed. The guidebook has been positively received by

supervisors and students.

International perspectives

We conducted two in-depth email interviews from creative arts researchers based in New

Zealand and the USA. The perspectives from the New Zealand creative practitioner

researcher revealed that ethics is addressing ethics as it is embedded in the methodological

approach and the discussions between supervisor and candidates. The candidate is guided

through the process by the supervisor and with research mentors (professoriate

researchers) who may be available to assist. Faculty representatives on the ethics

committee can also be accessed for advice or to advocate/clarify issues in specific instances.

An advisor for supervision staff is also available to support researchers and to run training

programs. A number of recent changes include using the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi

when working with Indigenous communities, and issues of copyright and intellectual

property as they relate to creative practice research within the university process. These

http://unimelb.libguides.com/c.php?g=402830&p=3063140

http://unimelb.libguides.com/c.php?g=402830&p=3063140

http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/2017/10/11/unsw-ethical-conduct-in-human-research-for-unsw-art-design-research/

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22

changes have been in part informed by a strong stance taken by the creative practice

disciplines to have these aspects recognised.

The creative practice researcher in the USA suggests ‘there remains a significant gap

between recognizing the importance of ethics within the creative arts and the formal

adoption and application of specifically “procedural ethics”’. They suggest there is ‘not a

good understanding of official university guidelines in the studio disciplines’. Further they

add that the requirement for ethics in the university is no different to that of any other

researcher working with human or animals, but at their particular university there has been

no architecture, art or design representation on the university ethics committee. There are

ethics training and resources for graduate students, developed to meet need. The creative

arts researcher in the USA suggests three points for further development in the space:

audience interaction installations, the use of taxidermy or appropriation of deceased animal

bodies within creative practices, and the notion of ‘anti-aesthetics’ as purposively disruptive

philosophical strategies, used in the context of the university within the rejection of the PhD

in the USA higher education context in the creative arts.

Community of interest

Australia:

ACUADS

Art Association of Australia and New Zealand

Australian Ethics Network

Deans and Directors of Creative Arts

Ethics administrators in participating institutions

Participants of the iDARE conference.

International:

Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Bartlett School of Architecture and Slade School of Art, University College London

Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University.


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Chapter 4: Impact and dissemination

In this chapter we provide a summary of the impacts and future dissemination plan for the

project outcomes. We also report on the impact management planning and evaluation

ladder (IMPEL) modelling as required by the Office of Learning and Teaching. From the very

start, the project team has embraced the importance of wide consultation, inclusive

research and extensive dissemination of outcomes. Through the extensive publicity for the

survey, the conference, and the workshops conducted at a number of different campuses,

there was a high level of awareness of the project and its goals.

Conference presentations and talks

The project team presented at the 2016 QPR conference: ‘iDARE Creative arts research

approaches to ethics: new ways to address situated practices in action’, which was

published in the refereed conference proceedings, and at the 2017 ACUADS conference:

‘What is “value” when aesthetics meets ethics inside and outside the academy?’ The project

team plans to present outcomes of the project to the 2018 QPR conference. The lead

researcher, Professor Barbara Bolt, has delivered keynote addresses on the area of ethics

and the creative practice PhD at Yogyakarta for the International Conference of Asia Pacific

Art Studies, and has been an invited facilitator at numerous postgraduate research

workshops.

At the conclusion of the first year of the project, the project was posted on the Australasian

Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services Pty Ltd blog Research ethics monthly, to create

awareness of the project across the sector and beyond.

Project website

Throughout the project, as materials were developed they were placed on the project

website hosted by The University of Melbourne. The final architecture of the website will

consist of a permanent record of the project and related documentation, including video

material from workshops and keynotes held during the life of the project. Alongside the

archive will sit a more interactive and live creative practice and ethics toolkit. This toolkit

will contain case studies of ethical issues that have arisen within creative practice research,

drawn from interviews conducted in the course of the project; pedagogical material that will

enable academics to replicate the workshop models that have been devised in the course of

the project; and a compendium of resources and guides that will assist CPRs in negotiating

ethics.

Sustainability

The sustainability of the project has been a driving concern for this project. The project

website is designed within The University of Melbourne’s WordPress template for its ease of

https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/idare-innovation-design-arts-research-ethics


24

use, easy maintenance and inherent infrastructure support. Links have been made with a

number of internal and external stakeholders to embed the toolkit at various universities,

once launched, with links to ethics platforms and processes, and formal and informal

training for researchers at university and faculty levels. At The University of Melbourne this

project has instigated a research training package module to be developed in collaboration

with the Research Ethics and Integrity unit.

The ability for individual and university customisation of all the resources produced by the

project has been paramount. The use of the library guide system at The University of

Melbourne is an example of this. Within the research team universities, there is ongoing

adaption of resources, and the guidebook from the University of New South Wales is in the

process of being customised to align with the Federation University Australia ethics process.

At the ACUADS 2017 conference, informal discussions were held with a number of key

personnel to establish links to the project for graduate research training in creative practice

departments and schools. The iDARE project was presented in a pedagogical session with an

audience of approximately 35 CPRs and academics.

In addition to the website, each member of the project team will maintain conversations

with their ethics administrators to ensure that the toolkit, and lessons learnt in the course of

the project, are integrated into the research training procedures and resources available to

future creative practice researchers. In this way, the knowledge acquired in the course of

this project can be utilised for future cohorts of RHD candidates and, ideally, future

experiences can be fed back into the resources.

Contribution to knowledge

The team has presented and published, and is the process of presenting and publishing,

papers from the project. A paper (Bolt, 2016) has been published in the refereed QPR 2016

Proceedings of the 12th Biennial QPR conference (20–22 April 2016). The paper ‘What is

“value” when aesthetics meets ethics inside and outside of the academy’ (Bolt, B, MacNeill,

K, McPherson, M, et al.) was presented at the annual ACUADS conference in 2017 and has

been accepted for publication in the refereed proceedings, and a further paper will be

submitted to the 2018 QPR conference.

The project team will produce a book consisting of refereed contributions from conference

presenters and other authors. The edited volume will present themes and issues that have

arisen from the project to a wider international readership. At this stage, the book has 14

chapters in various stages of readiness for publication, and the project team anticipates a

publication date in 2018. The contributions will reflect a range of perspectives, including

that of candidate, supervisor and ethics administrator, and combine this direct experience

with an analysis of the institutional context that frames ethics within the university sector.


25

Table 3: Project Impact and Dissemination modelling (IMPEL modelling)

Step Anticipated changes at

Project completion Six months post 12 months post 24 months post

Evidence at project completion

1. Team members

Growth in expertise

Strengthening connections with international network and reference group on ethics

Roles shift over time and leadership opportunities in this area present themselves

Project team become expert resources for other academics

All team members reflected on experience of the project and depth of knowledge in area

2. Immediate students

Experiences of creative practice students understood, documented and become exemplars

Students and lecturers supported to increase understanding and quality in ethics training

Greater support for ethics administrators and managers provides stronger foundation for students at all institutions where program is used

Case studies of candidates and academics. Resources requests from workshops. Workshops in partner universities well received

3. Spreading the word

Articles submitted to sector journals. Continued updating and promotion of toolkit

Continued rollout of project website to other institutions around Australia

Conference papers presented

Use of international reference group networks to share model widely

QPR 2016 ACUADS 2017 Forthcoming QPR 2018 (April)

4. Narrow opportunistic adoption

Use of existing networks to implement the program at other institutions

Sharing the program with others in the sector through conferences

ACUADS 2017 was a fruitful opportunity to network, with 3–4 universities becoming interested in the toolkit in the faculty and research training programs

5. Narrow

systemic

adoption

Online toolkit embedded as a resource across several universities

Applications for further funding from other sources to further project

Applications for further funding from other sources to further project

Toolkit currently being finalised for embedding to prepare for 2018 academic year

6. Broad

opportunistic

adoption

Professional development in ethics delivered

Possibilities for transfer and adaptation of the model to the sector

Thousands of students and lecturers benefit from online toolkit

Series of workshops documented in partner universities

7. Broad

systemic

adoption

Support and championing of program from Deans and Directors of Creative Arts and other influential networks

Other institutions adapt and implement the model

Reports contribute to improvements in the sector ongoing

Contribution to changing culture of awareness increased quality in ethics training

Impel colour code: Achieving In preparation Progressing towards


26

Chapter 5: Evaluation

See the evaluation report prepared by Dr Erich von Dietze in Appendix H.

The team was very pleased to have worked with the independent evaluator, Dr Erich von

Dietze, for the duration of the project and accept his fulsome and generous assessment of

the project. As observed in the evaluation report, the project was strongly focused on the

deliverables from the beginning of the project and as a consequence the milestones were

planned for, and met, in a timely manner. Key to the success of the project was the

willingness of each individual team member to engage in and contribute to the project in a

way that drew on their own strengths and the receptiveness of the academic community to

the project’s aims and approaches. As indicated in the IMPEL modelling chart, the project

has produced significant outcomes. It has also set up a number of key projects (an edited

book, conference presentations and pedagogical projects) that will enable the project to

achieve the goal of sustainability. We thank the Office of Learning and Teaching for this

wonderful opportunity and thank our reference group and the creative practice academic

community for embracing the project.


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Chapter 6: Conclusions

The Office of Learning and Teaching project ‘Developing new approaches to ethics and

research integrity training through challenges posed by creative practice research’ has

drawn together experts from six institutions, all of which have strongly developed creative

practice – The University of Melbourne, RMIT University, University of New South Wales,

Deakin University, Federation University of Australia and University of Wollongong – in

order to address the issue of how to develop a robust, innovative and ethically informed

research ethics culture in creative arts and design, a culture that would equip PhD graduates

with the ethical know-how to enable them to become ethical researchers in practice.

Through a nationwide survey that attracted responses from 116 CPRs and graduate

researchers, followed by in-depth interviews with 27 respondents, the project has been able

to map the key issues facing graduate researchers in their encounters with the ethics both

inside and outside of the academy. In response to these findings, the project has developed

a targeted toolkit that includes pedagogical models, case studies and resources for the

training of graduate researchers to prepare graduates for the real world. In addition, the

project has and will continue to produce key publications that disseminate the project’s

findings and also contribute to the development of ethical research frameworks and

practices in creative practice research.

In concluding this report, we would like to outline some of the key findings from this

mapping project and make some recommendations for consideration.

Ethics and the broader research context

Creative practice research and ethics

The project revealed that many of the ethical issues that arose for CPRs raised similar issues

to those that would concern researchers in the humanities and social sciences. What seems

most necessary following the conclusion of this project is the development of some means

whereby institutional ethics requirements are translated or communicated in a manner that

resonates with creative practitioners.

Is creative practice research so different after all?

A diversity of research methods and creative practices are adopted by researchers in

creative practice research, including qualitative, quantitative and practice-led and

performative methodologies. While many argue that creative practice research is inherently

different to other forms of research, it became evident from this study that this very much

depended on the particular methodologies that were being used. Many research projects

within a range of creative practices adopted methodologies that were very similar to those

employed in other fields of research. These included the area of anthropology, where


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ethical issues arise that are similar to those that were evident in some community cultural

development projects. Some creative practice research involved no more than conducting

face-to-face interviews with a number of research subjects, in a manner consistent with the

humanities and social sciences.

This is not to say that there are not concerns more generally with the way in which ethics

approvals are managed within universities, and examples can be found across disciplines

where research is curtailed because of unrealistic requirements in relation to consent.

The main argument made for the uniqueness of the creative process is that which

emphasises research as an emergent process, one in which there is not a clear ‘plan’ or

‘question’ at the outset. In these instances, the researchers find it very difficult to respond

to the set requirements of the ethics application process. It is in this area, which is described

as practice-led research, that there are currently few exemplars to assist CPRs to negotiate

the particularities of the ethics process.

Transdisciplinary discussion

The concerns and ambiguities that seemed to rise within creative practices also occurred in

other fields of research where wide-ranging methodologies are adopted. We have identified

these as follows.

Consent

One recurring issue is the concept of consent, and what in fact is being consented to, in

other words questions of informed consent. There is a tendency more generally to require

researchers to obtain written consent forms, when this is not necessary. It is important to

provide examples to academic staff and candidates as to when a signed consent form is

appropriate, and when consent can be assumed to have occurred by virtue of participation

beyond a certain point. Provided some form of information, in other words a plain language

statement, is provided to potential participants, one should be able to assume that consent

is given at the commencement of a recorded interview.

The necessity to obtain signed consent forms in many cases leads to a sense of lack of trust

between researcher and participant. In particular practices and methodologies, informed

consent is more problematic as researchers may not know what direction the research will

take. In these cases, there may be possibilities of explaining a form of constantly obtaining

consent throughout the practice, for example ‘checking in’ with participants, which could be

built into the method.

Data

Perhaps one area of difference that arises in creative practice research is the question of

what constitutes data. Again, the answer to this question arises not from a general


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statement as to whether the artwork created in the course of creative practice research is

indeed data, but more through an understanding of the nature of the research question

being asked and the methods being employed to answer the question.

Deception

A similar concern arises in relation to what constitutes deception. In merely observational

settings, where no recognisable images of individuals are being obtained, is it necessary to

obtain consent? One would only imagine it might be if it was a requirement that people

needed to be advised that they are part of research project. Or perhaps something more?

Or that they have been misled about the nature of the project/research. It would be useful

to have a resource that deals with this concern and research in public places more generally.

Dialogues with ethics and bringing academic staff on board

It may be that a key weakness in ethics education in the creative practice area is that many

staff may not be equipped to guide candidates through ethics, or have sufficient experience

with an ethics application themselves. Many of the attitudes towards ethics on the part of

academic staff, and then conveyed to RHD students, indicated a lack of comfort with the

ethics procedures. This suggests that there should be considerably more face-to-face and

group discussion opportunities amongst candidates, academic staff, ethics committee

members and ethics administrators, so that misunderstandings can be avoided.

Emergent methodologies

The most anxiety seems to exist where the research process itself is open-ended, self-

reflective and adopts an emergent methodology. Practice-led research presented the

greatest challenge for those who considered the requirement to frame a research project as

part of the ethics procedure to be an inappropriate limit on their research. While views

differed as to whether this was indeed a limitation, much of the confusion here could be

resolved with the sharing of ethics approvals that had enabled practice-led research to be

conducted. If this could be done across a range of practices it would reassure researchers

that innovation and uncertainty can be accommodated, and receive ethics approval.

Ethical researchers as compared with project approval

It also became apparent how much emphasis is placed on the ethics application process,

rather than on developing ethical researchers. If the focus were on ethical and self-reflective

researchers, then the researchers would already have a framework and justifications in

advance of seeking ethics approvals. In this case the agency of researchers is improved and

they are able to advocate for the ethical basis of their research processes.


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Ethics and research discussions should be part of pedagogical practices at all levels of

university education. In other words, a broader context and debate needs to occur so as to

frame the actual ethics compliance processes within a much wider discussion. Candidates

usually first meet the ethics process with the presentation of the ethics form or through an

online application process, by which time the issue of ethics has already been presented to

them as a form of compliance rather than the development of ethical know-how.

Questioning risk categories

A more nuanced approach to the ethics treatment of research with Indigenous peoples,

cultures and communities would be welcomed. The current perfunctory risk categories that

appear in the ethics forms do not allow for the possibility that the researcher themselves

may be Indigenous, and the assumption that targeting Indigenous peoples themselves

inevitably leads to a high-risk project is problematic. Clarification needs to be provided so

that people understand that research that might include Indigenous people does not

necessarily target Indigenous people.

Policy recommendations for creative practice research ethics

Ethics procedures

1. Universities to clarify whether all research must be scrutinised through an ethics process, whether it occurs as part of a postgraduate research program or in undergraduate and coursework postgraduate degrees, and provide adequate resources to support such programs.

2. University ethics resources to be structured around both discipline and/or field of research, and methodologies.

3. Resources provided to PhD candidates to be indexed/presented using nomenclature that is recognisable to their practices/disciplines, etc. (At present ethics material uses vocabulary of the National Statement, yet this is not the starting point of most researchers’ thinking.)

Ethics and creative practice research

1. Universities to encourage a culture of consultation between RHD candidates, academic staff, committee member chairs and ethics officers. This might take the form of regular attendance at research seminars or a fortnightly drop-in session.

2. So far as is possible, ethics committees to engage in direct dialogue with applicants in the course of an application, especially in cases where there may be grounds for misunderstanding. This will overcome the ‘black box’ nature of institutional ethics.

3. Universities to develop a set of examples that enables CPRs to assess whether their project might be considered of negligible risk.

4. Ethics forms to be part of a process of ethical consideration and not the beginning of it.


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5. PhD coursework programs to include a subject on research ethics that includes a wide consideration of theories of ethics that are relevant to the research process as well as addressing the institutional elements of ethics.

6. Greater clarity to be provided around ethics approval processes in the area of ‘Indigenous research’, where the possibility/certainty of Indigenous participants, cultures or communities might be involved.

7. Candidates to be given access to approved ethics forms that deal with methodologies or fields of research similar to that raised in their proposed project.

8. The default position in the social sciences and creative practice research to be that these are negligible and/or low risk until proven otherwise.

9. The default position to be that low-risk projects need not require signed written consent forms.

10. The concept of ‘pre-ethical’ to be adopted to recognise the importance of relationship building in research. Pre-ethics is critical in research with Indigenous participants, cultures or communities and where existing relationships exist with research subjects. This enables relationships to be maintained and adjusted in the light of the research, rather than suspended.


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References

Australian Government (2016a). Award course commencements, 2015. [Database].

Retrieved from https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/2015-commencing-

student-load

Australian Government (2016b). All students. [Database]. Retrieved from

https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/2015-all-students

Australian Government (2016c). Award course completions for all students by level of course

and broad field of education, 2015. [Database]. 2015. Retrieved from

https://docs.education.gov.au/node/41786

Baker, S., Buckley, B. & Kett, G. (2009). Future-proofing the creative arts in higher education.

Melbourne: Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools.

Bolt, B. and Kett G. (2010) ‘The Trouble with CARE: Creative Arts and Research Ethics’.

Quality in Postgraduate Research proceedings, pp. 119 – 128. Retrieved from

http://www.qpr.edu.au/Proceedings/QPR_Proceedings_2010.pdf

Bolt, B., Macneill C., McPherson, M., Barrett, E., Sierra, M., Ednie-Brown, P., et al.

(2017). iDARE creative arts research approaches to ethics: new ways to address

situated practices in action. In M. Picard & A. McCulloch (eds), QPR 2016: Quality in

Postgraduate Research, pp. 98–105, pp. 98-104. Retrieved from


Bolt, B., Vincs, R., Alsop, R., Sierra, M. & Kett, G. (2010). Research ethics and the creative

arts. Melbourne: Melbourne Research Office.

Ednie-Brown, P. (2012). Supervising emergence: adapting ethics approval frameworks

towards research by creative project. In B.T. Allpress, R. Barnacle, L. Duxbury & E.

Grierson (eds), Supervising practices for postgraduate research in art, architecture

and design. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp. 106–116.

Lewis-Beck, M.S., Bryman, A. & Futing Liao, T. (2004). The SAGE encyclopaedia of social

science research methods. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council and Australian

Vice- Chancellors’ Committee (2007), National Statement on the Ethical Conduct of

Research Involving Humans. Canberra: NHMRC.

Varela, F. (1999). Ethical know-how: Action, wisdom, and cognition. Stanford: Stanford

University Press.

https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/2015-commencing-student-load

https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/2015-commencing-student-load

https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/2015-all-students

https://docs.education.gov.au/node/41786




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Appendix A

Certification by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (or equivalent)

I certify that all parts of the final report for this OLT grant/fellowship (remove as

appropriate) provide an accurate representation of the implementation, impact and findings

of the project, and that the report is of publishable quality.

Name: Professor Richard James Date: 19.12.2017

Deputy Provost (Academic and Undergraduate) University of Melbourne


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Appendix B: External evaluation report

Dr Erich von Dietze

Research Ethics, Murdoch University

I was invited to be the Independent Evaluator for this Project in my capacity as ethics

administrator, Manager Research Ethics & Integrity at Murdoch University. I have a

background spanning over 20 years’ involvement with research ethics committees and

since 2006 have been managing the Murdoch University Research Ethics & Integrity

office. I have also published and given conference presentations on emerging areas in

the research ethics domain, including ethics and the arts and have been involved in the

approval of numerous research projects in creative practice. In this context, the team

felt that an evaluation from me would be both independent and crucially could comment

on the potential for implementation of any key ideas developed through the project.

I was regularly involved in many of the events and meetings of the project, so was able

to provide critical evaluative input along the journey. The project team developed an

open and inclusive approach to their work together, which was enhanced as they came

to know each other better and established increased trust. This proved to be a very

beneficial process as the project team were able to absorb feedback and respond to

input at all stages of the project, enabling the outcomes to be strengthened.

My overarching observation is that this project was conducted professionally, according

to the agreed project proposal. Milestones have been met in a timely manner and to a

fitting quality. Key to this was both the leadership of the team as well as each individual

team member’s willingness to contribute, often through significant extra effort. It has

been fulfilling to observe this project team from the start where initially members were

asking some wide-reaching questions concerning ethics in creative practice research, to

evolve in maturity and develop leadership in the field. The meetings, conferences,

website and proposed book are all evidence points along this journey. I am privileged to

have been able to be involved with this project.

Key events I was able to be involved with

13-14 Oct 2015 – Melbourne – Ethics & art & animals conference

This was one of the early events / outcomes of the project. A panel of speakers

discussed various ethical dimensions when animals are used in creative practice. My role

was to provide a summary and response at the end of the event. A worthwhile and well

attended event which unearthed some of the diversity of understanding about ethics in

creative practice.

26-28 Sept 2016 Ethics & Art conference

At one level a standard conference, at another level full of interactive workshops and

interconnections with students as well as professionals. I presented a paper discussing a

case study concerning the ethical dimensions of a particular performance project. A

well-attended conference with diverse involvement.

Meeting with Barb Bolt & Estelle Barrett in Perth

On 13 April 2017, we met at Murdoch University to discuss the outcomes and

deliverables of the project and also to focus on the longevity of these, including how

some elements might be maintained beyond the formal end of the project.


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4-5 Sept 2017 Sydney & Wollongong – workshops & meetings

The workshop at the University of NSW on 4 September drew out, through use of a

number of interactive case studies, some of the key learnings of this project. It also

served as a launch point for the document “Ethical Conduct in Human Research for

UNSW Art & Design Research” which has been designed to be able to be readily adapted

by other institutions.

The presentations on 5 September in Wollongong were interconnected with that

university’s post-graduate research week events, enabling broad interaction between

staff and current students.

Regular fortnightly / monthly Zoom meetings

Throughout the duration of the project the team held regular face-to-face meetings

utilising the Zoom technology. This proved to be useful as both meeting and team

building. Meetings were well prepared with clear agendas and room for relevant wider

discussions. Meetings were well attended with individuals making a real effort to

prioritise the project whenever possible. This enabled speedy development and sharing

of ideas and ensured that the project held to its aim of breadth of focus across

institutions and geographical regions. In hind sight, and given how well this worked, it

could have been possible to have an even broader group involved at least from time to

time.

Outcomes:

Early on a survey was conducted which assisted to document attitudes to ethics review,

to identify the various institutional practices for ethics review, and also to pinpoint the

needs of the creative practice research community. The survey obtained a useful

response from creative practice researchers, but little response from ethics

administrators. This became a defining moment in recognising that the creative practice

community as a whole need to communicate more effectively with ethics administrators

and committees. The project leaders intend to offer a presentation to ethics

administrators at the next Australasian Ethics Network Conference (2018).

The Workshop model which was developed has enduring potential for use as the case

studies can be adapted by different institutions in response to their particular contexts. I

have utilised some of the framework and the material on two subsequent occasions with

significant success.

The website has been an ongoing development from the earliest stages of the project as

a mechanism to host and make available the outcomes of the project. The challenge will

be to ensure that it continues to be updated after the formal end of the project.

Various student-centred workshops have been held and student groups (e.g. the CREW)

have emerged as a consequence of this project. Longevity is not as important as impact

here, and the sense I had of speaking with some of the students at the conference I

attended was that the project had engaged them to think differently about ethics both in

its broad context as well as the institutional approval requirements.

A particularly strong outcome is the development of the toolkit. This material has been

developed by researchers who work within creative practice and who face ethical

challenges as a consequence of their work. It forms a coherent, adaptable and useable

resource. This leads to greater understanding and ownership than if the material had

simply been adopted or modified from currently available resources or even been

provided by ethics administrators or committees. That an institution (UNSW) has taken

ownership of the idea of building the toolkit and has developed it both for their own


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needs as well as taking into consideration a wider audience bodes well for the ongoing

expansion and relevance of this toolkit.

A number of papers and a book remain to be published and are actively being worked on

by the team.

A particular strength of the project is in the clarity and relevance of the outcomes to the

creative practice community. Challenging ethical themes have been addressed and

overarching guidance offered to practitioners concerning how to manage and apply the

ideas in their own context.

While most of the outcomes are specific to the creative arts, there is wider relevance to

humanities based subjects, especially in emerging or non-traditional research areas.

The core question for the project was how to incorporate the ethos and culture of ethics

into research in creative practice particularly as higher degree (research) enrolments

increase across the country. I believe that the quality of the outcomes and impact of the

project, especially given the continuing interactions between team members, will have

ongoing impact into the creative practice community.

The Project group have been welcoming, open and responsive, and as the project has

evolved it has gained significant maturity. I am confident that this project was

undertaken systematically, rigorously and has produced excellent, worthwhile, outcomes

which will have ongoing impacts in the field.

final report: lead institution: partner institutions

Documents