Ethical considerations

The information below is to be consumed before you begin asking people to participate in your research. Specific guidelines for what to include in asking for consent can be found at the bottom of this page. Consult the below two websites for general ethical considerations (in English) and see the shortened translation of general ethics demands from Vetenskapsrådet.

Norwegian national research ethics committee's general guidelines. Or download as pdf.

Uppsala University's CODEX rules and guidelines for Human Subjects Research.

Below paragraphs translated loosely from Vetenskapsrådets "Forskningsetiska principer inom humanistisk-samhällsvetenskaplig forskning" (original pdf in Swedish):
Information demand: The researcher should inform those affected by the research about the aims of the research project. The researcher should inform participants what their role is within the project and which rules apply to their participation. They are to be informed that their participation is voluntary and that they have a right to withdraw consent at any time. The information given needs to cover all aspects of the research project that can affect the participants ability to consent to participation.
Consent demand: Participants in a research project have the right to decide the amount that they participate. The researcher is to acquire consent from a participant prior to engaging in the experiment. In certain cases consent is required also from parent or legal guardian (e.g. if the participants  are below 15 years of age and the research is ethically sensitive). Participants in a research project have the right to autonomously decide how long and under what circumstances they participate. They should be able to withdraw their participation without any negative consequences or repercussions. In their decision to participate or withdraw from the research they are not to be put under any influence or power dynamic that would negatively affect the participant.
Confidentiality demand: Information given in a research project is to be given largest possible confidentiality and personally identifying information needs to be stored such that unauthorized individuals cannot access them. All research staff within a project that have access to ethically sensitive, individually identifying information about participants should sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding this information. All information about identifiable individuals should be registered, stored, and reported in such a way that individual persons cannot be identified by non-research project people. In particular, this applies to information that can be seen as ethically sensitive. This means that it should be practically impossible for an outsider to get a hold of this information.
Purpose/usage demand: The information collected about individual persons can only be used for research-specific purposes. Information about individuals, collected for research purposes, cannot be used or given out on loan for commercial or other non-research related purposes. Information about individuals collected for research purposes cannot be used for decisions or repercussions that directly affects the individual (e.g. forcible commitment to psychiatric institution) except after special consent procedures with the involved persons.

Guidelines for your research project:
When asking people to join, you need to state (at the minimum); that they consent to participation in the study and know what they will be doing in the experiment; that they understand that they can withdraw their consent and stop participation at any time during the experiment; that they understand that they can withdraw their consent for usage of their data at any time after the experiment; that they are not penalized or in any way inconvenienced by withdrawing consent and/or participation at any time.

For any questions surround ethics contact your lab supervisor.