ACES User Guide

Adelaide Compliance & Ethics System (ACES) is used to submit applications to the University of Adelaide's Animal Ethics Committee (AEC).

Click on the links below or use Ctrl + F to search this page for help navigating the system.

Refer to the Contact Us page for application advice, technical support, or additional feature requests.

Work Area - your ACES homepage

Help - includes contact information for ORECI and technical support, FAQs, and Templates to assist you in completing an application

Notifications - displays items requiring your attention - see Emails and Notifications

Signatures - once an application has progressed through to approval, the CI's signature will be requested. A notification will be sent via email and the application will sit in this folder. Upon signing, the approval certificate will be generated.

Transfers - displays transfer of project ownership requests from other users - see Transfers

Shared - displays projects which have been shared with you by another user - see Sharing

Create Folder - Organise projects in your Work Area

Delete Folder - Remove an empty folder if no longer required

Create Project - Create a new application - see Creating a Project

Delete Project - Remove an unsubmitted application if no longer required - see Deleting a Project

Duplicate Project - Create a copy of an application. Only the Project Owner can use this function - see Duplicating a Project

Move Project - Move projects into folders as required

Transfer - Transfer ownership of a project to another user - see Transfers

Where projects have been filed into a custom folder, you must open the folder and use the Action buttons within the folder to duplicate, delete or transfer. 

If a folder is created using the Create Folder button, a Project Folders section will appear including an All Projects tile. Projects not assigned to a folder will appear below in the Project list. 

Projects can be dragged from the project list into a folder.

Click the arrow next to the project title to open the project details and view sub-forms created within the project.

System Emails are sent from donotreply@Infonetica.net

The emails you receive are dependent on the role you are assigned to a project. All listed investigators will receive receipt, approval, and closure emails. Only those with access to edit the project (i.e. those who have been assigned a role) will receive emails advising them of reviewer comments, reminders etc.

You cannot unsubscribe from system emails, however, if you believe you are receiving emails in error, contact the Project Owner listed in the email and ask them to remove you as a collaborator on the project. 

System Notifications are sent at the same time as system emails and serve as a quick reference point in your Work Area. You can open the relevant projects by clicking on the notification. You can delete notifications, mark them as read/unread and flag them as important.

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The following application types are available in ACES:

Animal Ethics - General Application Form    

Additionally, there are sub-forms connected to the main applications. These will only appear once a project has been approved. An example is the 'Annual progress report' or an 'Adverse Event' form. 

You can find further guidance about which application is required on the relevant Office of Research Ethics, Compliance, and Integrity (ORECI) pages, on the Researcher Portal.

If you have any queries whilst completing an application, check the FAQs page, or contact the relevant Committee Officer

Starting in your Work Area:

• Click Create Project
• Enter the project title, select the required form in the dropdown list, then click Create.
  
  

The project homepage will now appear. To proceed:

• Click Start Here to begin completing the form
• Work through the form using the Previous and Next buttons in the action panel
• Click Navigate to return to the project homepage
• Once you have completed the application and have reached the 'Ready to submit' page, by clicking yes. The Completeness Check will occur. This is to ensure you have completed all mandatory questions.
• Once all the mandatory questions have been completed, the application will automatically submit.
• Upon the automatic submission, you will be redirected to the submission confirmation page. 
•  All investigators listed on the application will receive an email receipt within 15 minutes of submission.

• If the application hasn't progressed to the submission confirmation page (below), check for a red warning banner across the top of the project home screen. If you can see this, the Project Owner will need to click Update to enable the submit button to appear. An update alert in a yellow banner is not mandatory and no functions are blocked.

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Adding Personnel

When adding personnel, there are restrictions in place where a student cannot be added as the Chief Investigator. If you have recently started employment with the University, and the change is not reflected in ACES, please contact the Ethics Officer for assistance. 

To list University of Adelaide investigators and/or students:

• Search by typing a University email address into the Search User field
• Double-click or hit the Tab button on your keyboard to add their details to the form
• Use Add Another beneath the last person in your list to add more investigators.

If the investigator’s name is not found using the search function, they need to log in and out of oreci.adelaide.edu.au to activate their ACES account – they will then appear in the search list.

Contact details are retrieved from the University HR feed and cannot be edited within the form.

External personnel must be entered manually. Listing an investigator on an application does not give them automatic access to the project in ACES. You must also assign them a role to provide them with access.  

Removing Personnel 

To remove
• an investigator click Remove beneath the person you wish to remove. The contact details will highlight in red indicating the person to be removed. For mandatory roles, e.g. Chief Investigator, you can not remove the person listed. Instead, you will need to use the Search User bar to enter the name of the person who will be taking on the role. Once selected, this person’s details will overwrite the details of the original investigator listed in the contact block.
  

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• Open a project in your WorkArea
• Click Roles in the Action Panel. You must have the main form selected in order to see this button.

• Enter the collaborator's email address. This must be a University of Adelaide email address
• Select the required role from the dropdown list. The selected role will apply to the entire project - that's the main form and all existing and future sub-forms.
• Use the green + button to list additional collaborators and assign their role
• Click Share Role to save.
  
  
• Click Roles to view all collaborators who have been assigned roles on the selected project. You must have the main form selected in order to see this button.
• Click Remove to remove a specific role that has been assigned to a collaborator, or, if the collaborator has multiple roles and is therefore listed multiple times, you can click Remove All Permissions for this person. If a collaborator is listed multiple times, the role with the highest level of access will apply.

You can not edit an existing role, but you can remove roles and re-assign a new role if required.

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Investigators can write comments to other investigators regarding specific questions within the application (e.g. a student wanting to check their response to a question with their supervisor before submission). These comments will only be visible to other investigators with access to the project and are not visible to Committee Members or the Ethics/Compliance Office.

• To add a comment, click the Comment bubble to the right of the relevant question
• Click + Add Comment and type the comment you wish to make then click Save.

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To view all changes made to the submission since the previous submission:

• Open the Project, then open a page of the form
• Click Compare with Previous Submission
• Any changed questions will be listed on the This Page, or All Changes tab
• Removed responses will be highlighted in red, whilst new content will be highlighted in green.
• Changes made by all collaborators with edit access will be listed.
• Changes may include new questions added or removed due to form updates.
• The form is not editable when viewing changes compared to the previous submission. If you wish to make edits, click Return to Edit Mode

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In the project view, the project tree displays the forms which have been created for a particular project.

• The top (Project) level displays the Project title
  • The second (Main Form) level displays the main form type that was selected when the project was created
    • Any forms listed beneath the main form are referred to as sub-forms. These include incident reports, annual reports etc. 

Clicking on any form in the list will display the form status details and the form contents in the navigation section below.

If yes - click Yes to view a list of the remaining mandatory questions which are yet to be answered

If no - all mandatory questions are complete and the form is ready to be, or has already been submitted.