The Health Sciences Ethics Committee application form must be prepared by considering the following important issues.

1. At least one of the researchers must be an AYBU staff member and/or student.
2. It is mandatory that the form is completely filled out.
   • Failure to write the information requested in the ethics committee application form or omitting some sections will cause your application not to be evaluated.
3. The start and end dates of the study indicate the start and end dates of the data collection process. The study cannot start before obtaining ethics committee approval. The data collection start date should be planned after¹ obtaining ethics committee permission.
4. Literature information should be cited in the application form (in the purpose, scope and method sections) when necessary. References should be given after the method and according to the citation order system (e.g., APA7, Vancouver, etc.).
5. In the case of re-application after the decision "The project needs to be developed in terms of ethics", a separate document from the ethics committee approval form should detail the reason for the previous application's rejection and all the arrangements/changes made in the second application regarding this reason. The application file containing these arrangements will be reviewed again by the ethics committee, and the file will be evaluated for the second time.

As a result of the evaluation, a final decision will be made as "The project is found ethically appropriate (APPROVED)" or "The project is not found ethically appropriate (REJECTED)". If a REJECTED decision is given in the 2nd evaluation as well, other applications made under the same title and subject will not be accepted by the committee.

In addition, in order to track the changes in the ethics committee application form, the changes made in the second application should be written in red.

6. When necessary for participants, an informed consent form must be created and added to the application form. The consent form should provide information about whether any fee will be paid to the participant and/or requested. If it is planned to include volunteers under the age of 18 in the study, a child consent form and a parent/guardian consent form should also be prepared.
7. The consent form should be arranged on a single page, and the signatures and consent text should be on a single page.
8. Identity information should not be obtained from participants. If this information is to be requested in the informed consent form; these forms should be collected and stored separately from the documents from which information is obtained from the participants, and it should be stated in the ethics committee application form that the process will be carried out in this way.
9. When necessary, permission should be obtained from the institution where the research will be conducted (Ministry of Health, Ministry of National Education, Private Institution Management, etc.) or it should be stated in the ethics committee application form that permission will be obtained later.
10. In studies where applications, therapies, etc. are performed, the same application opportunities should be offered to the control group participants at the end of the study, and it should be declared that they will be offered.
11. All references should be given under the heading "References" at the end of the text.
12. In studies with sensitive groups (children, pregnant women, adolescents, individuals with disabilities, specific diagnosis groups, etc.), additional measures should be taken for these groups and precautions should be stated in the application form.
13. In retrospective studies to be conducted using documents, records, etc., institutional permission should be obtained or it should be stated in the application form that it will be obtained.
14. If the study involves participants, the number of participants should be stated in the application form.
15. If there is a process, application, etc. in the study that requires competence, at least one of the researchers must be competent in this field. In addition, if the applicant is a thesis student and has applications in his/her study that require competence, this person must document that he/she is competent as the person who will perform the application.
16. Applications for research requiring medical intervention should be made to the Clinical Research Ethics Committee.
17. If a change has been made in the research process (e.g., change of center, addition or removal of researchers, deviation from the specified data collection dates, etc.), an application should be made to the ethics committee with a petition regarding this change and information should be given.
18. The process in the research (reaching participants, data collection, application/therapy, etc.) should be explained in detail.
19. The method section should be written clearly and in detail. Important issues related to this section are listed in detail under the headings below:

Participants

• The number of participants and its justification (e.g., Power analysis, etc.) should be explained.
• If it is to be collected from a specific institution and/or organization (e.g., AYBU students), permission must be obtained from this institution to collect data and the document must be attached. If permission has not been obtained yet, it should be stated that permission will be obtained from the relevant organization.
• Information should be given about the method information (qualitative, quantitative and mixed research, etc.) and population and sampling methods for the study.

Measurement Tools

• The introduction of the measurement tools (e.g., questionnaire, scale, observation, interview, etc.) and their content should be explained in detail so that they can be examined by the ethics committee.
  • If the use of measurement tools requires obtaining domestic or international permission and if there are copyrights, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder (e.g., scale owners), and these permissions must be added to the attachments section (e.g., screenshot if permission was obtained via e-mail, etc.) or it must be stated that permission will be obtained.
  • In addition, a sample of the measurement tools should be added to the attachments section of the ethics committee application platform.
  • In addition, if a measurement tool requiring expertise/competence is to be used (e.g., Cognitive tests, intelligence, personality tests, physiological measurements, etc.), who will perform this measurement and their expertise/competence should be stated and/or a legal proof document should be submitted.

Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria

• If deemed necessary, this information should be added regarding the participants within the scope of the research.

Process

• How the data will be collected should be written in detail. If the data will be collected from human participants, how the participants will be reached, in other words, how the participants will be invited to the research, should be written in detail. In human participants, an informed consent form should be prepared and it should be clearly stated that participants will be asked to read and fill it out.
• Again, since participation in human participant studies must be based on voluntariness, any application other than this is a "REJECTED" reason by the Ethics Committee. If rewards/course credits/gifts, etc. will be given to participants for participating in the research, it should be stated.
• In human participant studies, it should be clearly stated that informed consent will be obtained from individuals and, if necessary, from the legal guardian in cases where parental consent is required for children/adolescents/elderly, etc.
• The approximate number of hours and/or minutes of the measurement process/interview/evaluation, etc. should be stated, and this period should be a reasonable period (e.g., an application that will last for hours is not considered a reasonable situation).
• The data collection period (e.g., between January 2025 and March 2025, etc.), how these data will be used, stored and destroyed should be stated. Again, data should be destroyed after a reasonable period of time (e.g., after 5 years), and this situation should be declared.
• If the research will use retrospective data (e.g., laboratory data, various measurements already made, evaluations, etc.), what these data are should be written in detail in this section. In addition, the "Data Collection Form" to be created for these data to be collected should also be added to the attachments section of the ethics committee application platform.
• In human participant studies, the statement that data collection will begin after ethics committee approval is obtained should be added.
• If possible, "Additional Criteria" determined for ethical principles should be added to the study protocol. (e.g., Helsinki Declaration Ethical Principles, etc.).

Analysis of Data

• Roughly, the statistical analyses to be used in the analysis of the data should be written.

After creating the Application Form in ABS, the first page should be printed out, and the signature section of the applicants should be signed with wet ink, scanned, and added to the application attachments section.