With my research proposal being around cryptanalysis, there is potential for it to illegal or not suitable for research. With this my supervisor and I reached out to the research ethics member for Cyber Security.
I had to complete a form providing details of my research and explain the lab environment of where the data sources for cryptanalysis would be generated and used.
With the administration of my part complete, my supervisor submitted the necessary paperwork for approval, and was pleased to receive a favorable result, meaning my research can be conducted in the lab environment.
What was of interest is that my data will eventually be processed on a cloud solution, such as Amazons Sagemaker for Machine Learning, brining this to the attention of the at the earliest possible stage was a good idea, thankfully as long as my data sources are that of the lab, the processing can be done outside of the environment as shown in the HLD.
To summarize
- always ensure that your research is approved by the necessary research ethics committee
- if there are changes, be sure to let your supervisor and the member on the committee know
- Publicize approval in your thesis, ensuring it is matching the required citation, in my case “’This work has been reviewed with a favorable opinion from the School of Computer Science and Engineering Ethics Board, outcome number CSEE-R-2023-CG-001.’”
Bangor University Research Ethics Site here