Participant recruitment includes any documents, media posts, or contact made with potential participants (or the legal guardian of potential participants) to inform them about a research study. Participant recruitment materials may include, but are not limited to, emails to listservs, social media posts and images, physical or digital flyers, presentations, and person-to-person contact. Participant recruitment materials should include at minimum: 

• the PI’s name and contact, 
• the institution’s name, 
• the IRB protocol number, 
• the purpose of the research and eligibility criteria, 
• a description of risks and benefits, 
• the time commitment and activities, 
• the amount of compensation, and criteria for earning the compensation.

For more information on required elements of participant recruitment materials, please review our Notes on Recruitment. All materials must be submitted to TC IRB for review prior to being used for participant recruitment. 

Revising Elements of Recruitment

TC IRB understands that some recruitment mediums may be limited by word or character count (e.g., Twitter posts). In these cases, the primary investigator (PI) or lab name, and the IRB protocol number must be included in the recruitment. Other information should be included as necessary. For example, “Education Research Lab is recruiting college students for a study (e.g., 22-123) on sleep and academic performance. DM us for more info (OR) click the link in bio for more info!” 

In other cases, researchers may wish to use multi-media for recruitment purposes, such as videos or images. For short form videos (e.g., TikTok) or images with limited text (e.g., Instagram post), researchers should follow a similar rule of thumb to Twitter, in that the PI name and IRB protocol number should be included in the media itself. Further information about the study should be included in the caption. Long form videos or flyers with texts must adhere to the minimum participant recruitment criteria. In order to allow the IRB to review recruitment videos, researchers can upload the video script or share a link to the video. Please alert the IRB reviewer if the video link will be deactivated after the study. Images or flyers should be uploaded directly to Mentor IRB.

Recruiting on Private Groups or Spaces 

Some online spaces (e.g., forums) may be visible to the public, but participation requires the user to meet certain criteria or have a specific role. These spaces are considered private spaces. This includes Facebook groups, subreddit, or forums in which an administrator confirms you meet inclusion criteria that allows you to be part of the group once terms of use are agreed to (e.g. “You must be a resident of Morningside Heights to be a part of this group”). If you are a part of a private group under a role separate from your researcher role (e.g., Morningside Heights resident), you may not be able to post your recruitment materials for research purposes unless you disclose your researcher status to the moderators and the group prior to posting. For private groups, it is always best to ensure you have full permission from the moderators to post as a researcher. In general, TC IRB recommends these three steps when looking to recruit in private digital spaces:

1. Review the space's Terms of Use (TOU). If the TOU explicitly prohibit recruitment or research-related posts, you may not post.
2. If the TOU do not explicitly prohibit recruitment, contact the moderators/administrators of the space and ask for permission to post or engage with the group as a researcher.
3. When posting your research, announce yourself as a researcher to be clear of your role in the group.

Recruitment materials must be reviewed by the IRB during the initial protocol review. Researchers working with human subjects may not begin recruitment or research until they receive a final IRB approval letter. If you have questions about data security, please contact TC Information Technologies.

— Kailee Kodama Muscente, Ed.M., M.A.