Learners are able to use online recruitment methods to disseminate information about their studies and recruit potential participants. The most common means of online recruitment are posting materials (such as flyers) on message boards or mailing lists for professional organizations or on social media services like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram. This is permissible, although learners should follow these general guidelines:

1. Learners must provide the IRB with a clear idea of what materials will be posted online and what those materials will look like. These materials should follow the IRB’s standard guidance regarding recruitment materials: https://campus.capella.edu/doctoral-programs/research-scholarship/institutional-review-board/recruitment
   
   All materials must be reviewed and approved by the IRB prior to posting.
2. Learners must provide the IRB with the names and web addresses (URLs) for all locations online where they intend to post recruitment materials.
3. Learners do not need additional permission to post recruitment materials to their own personal social media pages.
4. Learners do not need additional permission to post recruitment materials to public/open social media groups or organizational message boards or mailing lists.
5. However, learners DO need to obtain permission to post recruitment materials on private or closed social media groups or organizational message boards or mailing lists. Private/closed social media groups are often labeled as such. Message boards or mailing lists that require membership or approval to post materials are also considered private/closed.
   
   Permission to post recruitment materials within these locations must come from the owner/moderator/administrator of the social media group/message board/mailing list/etc. This permission may be in the form of an email.
6. Whenever posting materials on social media groups, message boards, or mailing lists, learners are expected to abide by all site policies regarding posting.
7.        If you are unsure if an online resource is private or public or requires permission to post materials, contact the IRB Office.

For some studies involving online recruitment, learners may contract with services such as Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, UserInterviews.com, or Amazon Mechanical Turk (NOTE: this is not a comprehensive list of such services, nor does the IRB specifically endorse any of the named services) to have those services recruit potential study participants for the learner from the service’s registered database of users. This is permissible, but learners should clearly state this recruitment approach in their materials to the IRB.

Review the FAQ guidance on security/privacy resources for web-conferencing platforms here:

https://capella.libanswers.com/doctoralsupport/faq/301352