Transparent, Reproducible, and Ethical Evidence (TREE) Review Framework Questionnaire

Instructions

The objectives of the Transparent, Reproducible, and Ethical Evidence (TREE) Review Framework are to: (i) establish ethical standards for evaluations, (ii) better integrate best practices for transparency, reproducibility, and ethics into evaluation workflow; and​ (iii) establish timely, independent review of risks facing the evaluation team to produce credible, meaningful, ethical evidence and the efforts to mitigate such risks (See Appendix 1 for examples)​.

The TREE Review Framework is based on 10 standard ethical standards for evaluations:

  1. Use transparency as a tool
  2. Maximize social value and meaningful use
  3. Balance power and align incentives
  4. Preserve standard of care
  5. Value and prioritize community engagement
  6. Use fair methods
  7. Ensure fair treatment of participants
  8. Ensure appropriate informed consent and protection of confidentiality
  9. Ensure favorable risk-benefit ratio
  10. Ensure favorable cost-benefit ratio

The TREE Review Framework Questionnaire is designed to pose specific questions regarding evaluation teams’ actions and decisions related to achieving the 10 ethical standards. Teams may use the TREE Review Framework Questionnaire for two purposes:

  1. Documentation only: Team members may use this Questionnaire as a guide for actions and decisions at the funding, design, data collection, and dissemination stages of the evaluation life cycle.
  2. Documentation and submission for independent assessment and feedback: Team members may use this Questionnaire to document their actions and decisions at the funding, design, data collection, and dissemination stages of the evaluation life cycle and submit to the TREE Review Committee for assessment and feedback.

To fill in the Questionnaire, evaluation team members are asked to provide responses through two mechanisms:

  1. Specific questions: For specific questions, the team members are asked to provide the response based on the drop-down options provided. If Not Applicable, the team members should select the Unknown or Not Applicable options. If the team’s response is not available in the drop-down menu, the team can provide Notes in the Evaluation Team’s Notes section.

    a. Certain answers to specific questions trigger a request for the team members to provide more detail, a justification, and/or a risk mitigation strategy. These questions have specific instructions in RED FONT.

  2. Probing/open ended questions: The evaluation team members can provide more detail in the Evaluation Team’s Notes section.

If specific questions or sections are not relevant given the stage of the evaluation life cycle, the evaluation team members can note Not Applicable or Too Early. Evaluation teams should anticipate submitting supporting documentation: Informed Consent/Assent(s), Questionnaire(s), Protocol(s), Data Management Plan(s).

Click here to read the concept note

Sample TREE form