Summer/Fall 1999

ince its creation about one and a half years ago, the NCEHR website has constantly evolved to meet the needs of a diverse clientele. The first step essentially dealt with NCEHR’s public image: information on the Council, its mandate and the range of services it offers. The "Who We Are" and " What We Do" sections are full of useful information on NCEHR activities. The section on "Site Visits" is particularly interesting because you will find a status report on REBs across Canada. This report, although it includes only REBs working within faculties of medicine, and was published in 1995, is still quite current because even if the context has evolved, the difficulties encountered by REBs are essentially the same.

Implementation of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans has quickly made the website a tool for offering resources to REB’s, researchers and research establishments. Other sections have been added to the initial list. The "Links" section has several policy statements and guidelines that address the issue of protection of human subjects who participate in research, a list of websites of national and international organizations with mandates similar to that of NCEHR, as well as a series of different publications on ethics in research. The "Upcoming Events" section includes workshops on ethics in research. NCEHR offers space on its site to organizations or groups that wish to announce meetings they are organizing that deal with topics related to ethics in research. The "What’s New" section usually presents items that have recently been added to this section. This is quite useful for regular visitors to our site, as it will save them time.

When they wish to know details about an upcoming NCEHR workshop, a simple click on "What’s New" will immediately bring up information on that workshop.

Finally, we must mention a most interesting section on the site for NCEHR clients: the "REB Resources" section. Users will benefit greatly from visiting this part of the site to learn about new resources. NCEHR wishes to promote best practices in research ethics by posting on its site various forms or policies that are found to be appropriate. Currently, there are consent forms, but also a series of useful questions for REBs that wish to ensure free and informed consent by human research subjects. Also, the PowerPoint presentations on the Tri-Council Policy Statement on research could be useful to anyone who is interested in presenting it. The presentations can be downloaded, and the instructor can add or cut slides as needed. Presentations are divided by chapter to reduce download time.

NCEHR invites all of its website readers to offer comments. Whether it be to inform us about an interesting website, present a policy statement or signal bad links or errors, users are invited to use the "Contact Us" section. NCEHR employees will be pleased to forward messages to the appropriate boards. Happy surfing!