Recruitment

This tutorial will walk though using WhiteCloud to support participant recruitment.

Participant recruitment involves the following:

  1. Create a study instance
  2. Creating a study listing
  3. Setting the listing status to Recruiting
  4. Implement recruitment strategies
It is best practice to first design other aspects of study management prior to commencing with participant recruitment. This may include defining groups, tags, custom fields, randomisations, data capture forms, and appointment and email templates.

1. Create a study instance

A study instance is essential for all research activity on WhiteCloud. To create a study, visit the Researcher Dashboard, and select “Add study”.

Create a study instance by selecting “Add Study” from the Researcher Dashboard.

2. Creating a study listing

Study listings are visible from the front end of the website when browsing studies, and are essential for participant recruitment. Other modes of adding participants to a study instance may not require a study listing, such as adding participants manually, or enabling private applicants.

To create a study listing:

  1. Enter the Study Manager by selecting the study name from the Researcher Dashboard. A blue header will be present with the study name when in the Study Manager.
  2. Using the left navigation bar, navigate to “Recruitment”, and select “Listing”
  3. Enter the complete details for your study listing.
  4. Save the listing when complete.
  5. Set the listing status to “Recruiting”

At anytime the listing can be previewed by selecting the preview button.

Access the Study Manager by clicking on the study name in the Researcher Dashboard

Create a study listing by navigating to Recruitment > Listing from the left navigation menu

Save and preview the completed listing, and set the status to “Recruiting”.

4. Implement Recruitment Strategies

WhiteCloud offers a growing range of tools to support participant recruitment. To access the recruitment manager, use the left navigation menu and navigate to Recruitment and select “Recruitment management”.

In addition to the study listing, the tools available to support recruitment include:

  • Using  QR code – An image that can be inserted onto a poster to enable applicants to apply online, from printed material
  • Enabling private applicants – Hide the study information and only allow applicants that have the password to apply
  • Tracking links – monitor the activity of inbound links from other websites or URLs
  • Notifications – send notifications to the WhiteCloud participant database
  • Using widgets – enable online applications from other websites or webpages
  • Add participant – manually register participants to ensure that offline applications can be managed with online applicants
  • CFP – use a partner website to further boost promotion.

To learn more about the individual recruitment tools, please view the documentation.

Recruitment tools can be accessed by navigating to “Recruitment” > “Recruitment management” from the left navigation menu.