Recruiting participants is an important aspect of many studies. But recruitment is not always as easy or straightforward as we might like. Whenever access to participants requires that you work through another person or agency, a letter of cooperation is often needed. This brings up three questions: 1) when is a letter of cooperation needed, 2) what should be included in that letter of cooperation, and 3) how do I document cooperation for the IRB?
Whenever you want to recruit someone because they are a member of a particular group or agency, you need permission from someone within that group or agency who is in a position to grant you access to their members. For example, if you want to recruit from classes here at SCSU, permission from the professors of those classes is needed. If you want to recruit teachers at a local middle school, then permission from someone like the principal should be obtained. Private online communities, like Facebook groups, will need permission from the group administrator or moderator before you can recruit.
There are times when permissions are not needed. When using platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, for example, no permission is needed. Likewise, posting on open-access social media sites, like some areas of Reddit.com, might not need permission.
Of course, as your research is unique, there are times when the decision to seek (or not) a letter of cooperation is not clear-cut. In these cases, feel free to reach out to the IRB Chair to ask for clarification.
Letter of cooperation must contain at least the following three elements:
Letters of cooperation must be traceable to the authority who gave permission. Acceptable signatures include a hand-signed, printed form (preferably with company letterhead), which is then scanned. Alternatively, an email sent from the individual’s professional email address will suffice (which can be forwarded as needed to the IRB).
When your work requires cooperation for a particular agency, permissions must be documented before you turn in your IRB application.
When your work requires cooperation, but the specific agency is not important, then you can document permission after IRB approval is achieved. However, a sample letter of cooperation will need to be provided to the IRB with your application—in other words, you develop the letter of cooperation that will be signed, and it is the unsigned letter we approve.
As an example of the latter, you might want to work with Minnesota middle schools. While you want to work with middle schools, there is no particular middle school that is essential to your study. Therefore, you are fine if some schools refuse to cooperate.
When the site or agency has requirements or needs that differ from those of SCSU’s IRB, it is best to consult with the SCSU IRB Chair prior to obtaining the letter of cooperation.
Any questions over this or other IRB activities can be directed to either IRB Co-Chairs: