// AGREEMENTS
Agreements and policies
BIOME uses three agreements and two policy documents to establish the legal framework between the platform, participants, and researchers.
When agreements are required
| Document | When shown | Acceptance required |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Terms of Service | During account registration | Yes — scroll-to-accept with checkbox |
| Participant Study Agreement | When applying to a specific study | Yes — scroll-to-accept with checkbox |
| Experimenter Study Agreement | When publishing / launching a study | Yes — scroll-to-accept with checkbox |
When an agreement appears during a workflow (application, publishing, onboarding), it opens in a modal overlay. Your form state is preserved. You will not be navigated away from the page. The agreement text must be scrolled to the bottom before the acceptance checkbox becomes active.
Read-only reference
All agreements and policies are also available as read-only reference documents from the footer:
Footer links open the full document text on a dedicated page. These pages do not include acceptance checkboxes — they are for reference only.
Dispute resolution
If you believe a decision was made unfairly — such as a milestone rejection, violation flag, or payout denial — you may raise a dispute within 7 days of the event.
The first 3 disputes per account are free. Subsequent disputes incur a $10 dispute fee.
To raise a dispute, use the "Report an Issue" link in the footer or the dispute button in your dashboard. You will need to provide:
- —Study ID
- —Description of the issue
- —Any supporting evidence (file upload, max 5MB)
BIOME reviews disputes and responds within 72 hours. Both parties can communicate through the dispute thread. Resolutions are final unless escalated.
For the full dispute resolution process, see the Platform Terms of Service.