Understand and Manage Consent in Folktale

A guide for Admins, Insights Leads, and Contributors covering how consent works across the story submission and participant inclusion process.

📍 Who is this for?

  • Admins and Insights Leads: to understand how to set up a custom consent document for their project.
  • Contributors: to understand what consent they're agreeing to when submitting a story, and how to collect consent from people they include in their story.

Overview

Consent in Folktale works at two levels:

  • Consent from the Contributor submitting a story, and
  • Consent from any Participants included within that story.

By default, Contributors agree to Folktale's Copyright and Personal Information Use Terms. However, Admins and Insights Leads can replace this with a custom consent document that fits their organisation or program's needs.

For participants, people whose voices or experiences are featured in a story, Contributors can collect consent directly from within the story authoring page, keeping everything in one place and on record.

⚠️ Important: Only Admins and Insights Leads can upload or change a project's consent document.

By default, all Story Invitations in Folktale display Folktale's Copyright and Personal Information Use Terms. If your organisation or program requires Contributors to agree to different terms, you can upload your own consent document at the project level.

Step One: Open Project Settings

  1. Navigate to the relevant Project in your workspace.
  2. Open Project Settings.
  1. In Project Settings, click on Contributor terms and conditions.
  2. Upload your custom consent document.

💡 Note: Once uploaded, your custom consent document will replace the Folktale default consent for all Story Invitations created under that Project — including any new invitations created after the upload.

As a Contributor, you'll encounter consent at the Preview and Submit step, which is the final screen before you submit your story. Review the document displayed above the Submit button, then click Submit when you're ready.

💡 Note: If your project uses a custom consent document, you'll also see it earlier — when you first accept the Story Invitation. You'll be asked to select Accept or Decline before you can begin contributing.

When a story includes other people — such as a community member, interviewee, or anyone whose details or experiences are featured — Contributors can record that person's consent directly within the story.

  1. On the story authoring page, navigate to the question where you'd like to record a participant's consent.
  2. Click Collect consent from participants below that question.

Step Two: Share the Consent Page with the Participant to complete the Consent Form

  1. A consent page will be generated for that question, then ask participant to compelte the consent form.
  2. The participant needs to enter their name and location, then check the consent box to confirm they have read and understood the terms. Then click the I agree button to record their consent.

You can collect consent from multiple participants for the same question by repeating the same process.

Once a participant has given their consent, their name will appear under Participants in your story.