Instagram Data Access Pilot for Well-being Research

How to Submit

The submission period for the Instagram Data Access Pilot for Well-being Research is now closed. Thank you to all who submitted proposals—selected participants will be notified the week of October 1st.

Responses to researcher eligibility questions. For example, researchers must disclose any potential conflict of interest. The disclosure should include: (1) The nature of the conflict; (2) The individuals, organizations, or entities involved; and (3) Steps taken to mitigate or manage the conflict, if applicable. COS staff will review researcher eligibility on a pass/fail basis.

A one page description of the research question and approach will be evaluated by the Editorial Board for alignment with the research design and research topics criteria specified in this RFP and initial quality assessment. The Editorial Board will be blind to researcher identities when conducting their review. This portion of the proposal should answer two questions: “What is the research question and how does it fit with the research topic eligibility requirements?” and “What is the research design?” When describing the design, researchers should emphasize features of research rigor described in the eligibility requirements and other study design features such as sampling strategy, sampling plan for precise estimation and generalizability, use of validated measures, features of comparative studies of samples and contexts, and primary outcome measures. It should also be clear how the researchers expect to use Instagram data in the proposed research. Alignment with research design and research topic requirements will be evaluated as pass/fail, but initial quality assessment will be graded on a 3-point scale: below standard (1); meets standard (2); exceeds standard (3).

Key Resources

Request for Proposals

Read the full Request for Proposals (RFP) to learn more about eligibility requirements, the submission and evaluation process, and key deadlines. Review the RFP to determine if the pilot is appropriate for your research questions.

User Guide

A detailed resource providing information on the Instagram data available for research, including what data can be requested and how it will be shared. The User Guide is essential for understanding how to effectively use the data in your research.

Additional Resources

Information Sharing Agreement

This is the template for Meta’s Information Sharing Agreement, which as mentioned in the RFP and User Guide, researchers and their institutions will be required to sign after their Stage 1 Registered Report is approved to participate in the pilot.

Data Request Form

Review a view-only version of the Data Request Form; submissions will only be accepted from researchers invited to submit a Stage 1 Registered Report.

Evaluation Criteria

We expect 5 to 7 pre-proposals will be selected by the Editorial Board to move on to full Stage 1 Registered Report submissions. Pre-proposals that meet all pass/fail criteria and achieve a score of meets standard (2) or exceeds standard (3) on the initial quality assessment of the Pre-Proposal Form will be eligible for selection. If there are more eligible proposals than can be included in the pilot, then proposals will be selected by lottery. The lottery will include only proposals that received a quality score of exceeds standard (3) if there are more 3-rated proposals than can be included. Otherwise, all 3-rated proposals will be included, and the lottery will be conducted on proposals receiving a quality score of meets standard (2).

Registered Reports

The submission and review processes will be administered by COS following a version of the Registered Reports publishing model.

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Registered Reports is a publication workflow in which there are two stages of peer review. The first stage of peer review occurs prior to conducting the research. During the first stage, research questions and designs are evaluated for the importance of the research question and the quality of the study design. Feedback from peer reviewers can be incorporated to improve the research question and design, as opposed to the standard peer review process that is limited to pointing out strengths and flaws of completed work. Accepted submissions receive an in-principle commitment to publish the results regardless of outcome to combat publication bias and promote transparency of all conducted research.

The second stage of review occurs after the research is conducted and the final report is written. During the second stage, final reports are evaluated for whether analyses were conducted and reported in a way that aligns with what was described in the submission that was accepted at the first stage. Recent literature suggests that the Registered Reports publishing model is associated with less publication bias, particularly through reporting null results (Scheel et al., 2021; Wiseman et al., 2019), and higher rigor and quality of research and reporting (Soderberg et al., 2021 see Chambers and Tzavella, 2022 for a review).

Timeline

The submission period for the Instagram Data Access Pilot is now closed. Selected participants will be notified the week of October 1st.

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