Human Subjects Recruitment

Human Subjects Recruitment 

Within the IRB submission, the research team is asked to describe, in detail, how subjects will be recruited. Some more common recruitment methods include emails, flyers, classroom announcements, and social media posts. 

If the PI is recruiting from a private business, office, school, or organization, the PI must provide a consent letter from a person in a position of authority from
all locations.

The PI must provide all recruitment materials for review. Recruitment material should include several details about the research study. When possible, please utilize IRB Forms and Templates when creating recruitment materials. The recruitment materials should not include any coercive language, amount of payment, dollar signs, or the words “free” in large or bold face type, bolded, underlined, or italicized compensation intended to draw attention.

For more information about Participant Recruitment, please review IRB SOP 20.01 Submission and Review of Requests for Approval
 

Recruitment Methods

SONA

UNT SONA can be used to recruit participants and award SONA credit. 

ResearchMatch

  • ResearchMatch is a national registry of patients interested in volunteering for medical research. This registry was developed by academic institutions across the country with the purpose of connecting research study teams with potential research patients. Anyone can register with ResearchMatch – even healthy volunteers.
  • Registration is free and takes 5 to 10 minutes. By registering with ResearchMatch, individuals are not registering to participate in any particular study. Registration lets individuals indicate their willingness to be contacted about studies that may be a good fit for them.
  • Access to ResearchMatch is granted on a study-by-study basis; that is, investigators must individually register each study. ResearchMatch is only available to be used for Health-related research studies. Registration takes only a few minutes and you must complete the process in one sitting.
  • There are two levels of access available to University of North Texas investigators: feasibility access and recruitment access.
    • Feasibility access: Feasibility access gives you the ability to view aggregate data on the registry population without an IRB-approved protocol. To register a study for feasibility access, you must:
      • Be affiliated with the University of North Texas as a faculty/staff member. 
      • Provide your University of North Texas faculty/staff email address
      • Create a ResearchMatch username and password
    • Recruitment access: Recruitment access gives you the ability to recruit volunteers through ResearchMatch. To register a study for recruitment access, you must meet the same access requirements as for feasibility access. In addition, for each study you want to recruit for, you must:
      • Be the principal investigator (PI) or authorized to recruit for the study on behalf of the PI
      • Upload an electronic copy of your IRB approval letter, and an IRB approved recruitment message to implement when using ResearchMatch. 
         
Crowdsourcing Platforms

Crowdsourcing Platforms such as Amazon MTurk and Qualtrics Panels are widely used to recruit participants and gather responses. If you plan to use a crowdsourcing website, please outline this within your IRB Submission. 

Social Media Recruitment

If subjects are being recruited on social media, the Principal Investigator must state if the social media pages being utilized are the personal pages of the Researchers. If the social media pages are private groups, the Principal Investigator must obtain permissions from the group page administrator and attach as documentation to the Request for Approval for review.

 
Frequently Used Resources