Introducing a new tool - Social Media Consent Form

Posted on Friday, August 13, 2021

The Office of the Vice-Dean, Research and the INSITE lab are pleased to present a new tool for our researchers: a Social Media Consent Form template.

Bitmojis of INSITE lab members

This consent form was first developed by Krystelle Shaughnessy, Associate Professor at the School of Psychology, and Director of the Individual and Social Influences of Technology (INSITE) Laboratory. Founded in 2015, the INSITE lab conducts research on how technology influences and is influenced by social and individual factors. Alongside the laboratory’s work in Knowledge Mobilization, Professor Shaughnessy and lab members collaborated to create the first iteration of a social media consent form for use by lab members. “It is important to get consent to share information about, and images of people – especially on the internet where it becomes part of their digital footprint. It is easy to forget to ensure that we have explicit consent when we are sharing and marketing our lab’s work” explains Professor Shaughnessy. “Anything we create involving other people becomes part of their digital footprint. Everyone has a right to manage their own privacy.” After searching for an existing research-related form to use and finding them too broad, coupled with the fact that privacy policies for individual platforms are complex and hard to navigate, the lab members decided to develop their own version. It includes options to provide consent for some, but not all, content and platforms.

Supported by faculty funding from the Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) Program, Professor Shaughnessy and members of the INSITE lab have worked on numerous KMb tools and platforms. They increased their social media presence on Twitter and Instagram, and created insightful and informational videos for their new YouTube channel. Their content is a blend of lab-related research findings, awareness building on issues valued in the lab, and promoting KMb work particularly in online contexts.

Professor Shaughnessy is also a Research Priority Champion at the Faculty of Social Sciences, representing the research priority of Media, Technology and Society. This accessible Social Media Consent Form template was developed in collaboration with the Office of the Vice-Dean Research to make it available to our research community.

Download the Social Media Consent Form (pdf, 211.11 KB)

INSITE Laboratoire sur l’influence sociale et individuelle de la technologie
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