- Legally, you are permitted to advertise that you are recruiting informants for a research project via social media such as Facebook.
- However, it is currently not permitted to pay for advertisements on Facebook.
- The actual consent to participate must be given through a University of Oslo online form linked to the website for your research project. You should advertise the recruitment on social media by linking to this website.
- When you advertise your recruitment via social media, you also need to conduct an ethical assessment before and during recruitment:
Ethical assessments in advance
a) If you are a student or doctoral research fellow, you first need to obtain permission from your supervisors to use social media for recruitment before moving on to step b, c and d.
b) You must obtain approval from the Norwegian Centre for Research Data/Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics to advertise for recruitment via social media.
c) Approvals from the Norwegian Centre for Research Data/Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics must be uploaded to Forskpro by yourself or your supervisor before recruitment commences.
d) You must also draw up a supplement to your data management plan, showing that social media is used for recruitment.
Ethical assessments throughout
- Make sure that the post includes text stating that no-one must enter personal data in the comments
- You are responsible for moderating posts and deleting any personal data that may be left in comments, preferably within one day. For example, “It’s great that you are conducting research on autism, I have a daughter who is autistic and I would like to sign her up for this research project.”
- Any measures that are taken throughout based on your ethical assessments must be recorded in the data management plan.
Who do I contact?
Get in touch with the privacy officer at your unit if you have any questions.
If you need assistance creating a research project website, please contact the webmaster at your unit.