A. Overview

All ethics applications completed in ResearchMaster were extracted and attached to the same application reference number in Hōkai. This application reference number also connects the application with every person on the research team (e.g. researchers, supervisors, and heads of school).

This enables you to quickly find previous application documents inside Hōkai, and use them to create an amendment.

You will need to complete Hōkai's full amendment form, and use the extract of your previous application to cut and paste your responses into Hōkai's form. This is because you are creating a form in the new system for the first time, using information that was created in the old one.

The Principal Investigator for the project will submit the Amendment form. For more about how forms are completed and submitted in Hōkai, see Basics: Create and Submit an Application.

The steps to complete the Amendment form are detailed below.

B. Review your application details and documents

When you log into Hōkai, your approved application(s) appear on the homepage under Projects (Approved applications):

Homepage with Projects links and info highlighted

a: Identification number hyperlink: This is the application reference number. The first four digits are the year the application was submitted. If your Identification number starts with 1901, it is a placeholder number that needed to be added for data migration. It does not affect your ethics application or approval.

b: Completed or Approved status and Date Range: These fields work properly for applications created in Hōkai. They are not reliable for applications migrated from ResearchMaster. Do not be concerned if the status or dates look strange to you. They will not affect your ethics approval.

Step 1. Click the Identification number hyperlink:

You are now on the Project Details page for your application:

Project details page showing details, contacts, and documents sections

Step 2. Scroll down to see the application Documents extracted from ResearchMaster.

Your application and all supporting documents list as migrated data:

Migrated documents with migrated data type highlighted

The migrated application form is an html file that starts with the letters QA:

Documents with application html file highlighted

If you submitted the application in 2015 or earlier, your application form will appear here, but no supporting documents are listed. This is because supporting documents were not uploaded in those days, so there was no digital file to extract.

Step 3. Select all documents and click download:

Documents selected and download button highlighted

Step 4. Open your "QA...." application form html file.

This file will open in a new tab in your browser, and look like this:
Example Application with the questions and answers listed as simple text

You will use this information and text to complete the Amendment form.

C. Create New Amendment

Step 5. From the top of the Project Details page, click on Applications underneath the Project number and title:

Project details page highlighted where "Applications" appears underneath project number and title

You are now in the Applications section of the Project page:

Applications tab has a green line underneath it, in the middle of the page is a table with one row and several columns

Step 6: Reveal and click the New Amendment button

6.1: Click inside the grey row to reveal a menu of actions you can take with your application, as shown in the gif below. Do not click the hyperlink at far left, it navigates away from this page. (If you click it accidentally, just navigate back to previous page.)

6.2: Click on New amendment. A box will pop up to create a New version:

Gif showing the steps to create new amendment, described in main page text

Step 7: Click New version to start your Amendment form:

New application version window that pops up, with New version button highlighted

You are now in the Amendment form. The sections of the Amendment form are the same as your original application, with an Amendment section added:

Amendment form showing the Amendment section and questions

Step 8: Add your project team and click Confirm

Add every member of your Project team to the Personnel section. Make sure the right person is listed as the Principal Investigator. In Hōkai, only a Principal Investigator can submit an ethics application. For PhD, Masters, or Honours research applications, specific instructions about the Principal Investigator and Roles will appear.

Make sure you click the Confirm contact button to confirm each project member.

Gif showing "Confirm contact" changing to "Contact confirmed"

For more information about adding the Project team, see Basics: Create and Submit an Application.

Step 9: Use the text from your previous application document to complete the Amendment form.

Copy an original application response from the html form to paste it into Hōkai:

Answer text selected in blue

Then paste this text into your Amendment in Hōkai. Where you amend your response to the question, writing "AMEND:" in the response you are changing will make this clear for the reviewers.

NOTE: Question numbering has updated on the form, so the numbering will not be exactly the same. However, the same questions appear in the same order on the form.

Questions 15 and 16 with "Q16" highlighted

The completed sections display a green checkmark. Any sections where a required question has been skipped will display a red X:

Amendment with some sections displaying green tick and others a red X

D. Upload Supporting Documents

Step 10: Upload your Supporting Documents to the Amendment form.

Upload all of the supporting documents for your application here, whether or not they are amended:

Supporting documents section

E. Submit the Amendment

Step 11: Accept and Submit the form

When the Amendment application is complete, the Principal Investigator can submit the application. The Accept and Submit button appears for the Principal Investigator to submit the Amendment form:

Sign off page with button highlighted

Congratulations for crossing the divides between the old system and the new. Your Amendment is complete!