Long duration gamma ray bursts (GRB's) have been identified as originating in type II SNa explosions, produced during the late stage evolution of massive stars. As the lifetimes of their progenitors are so short the GRB rate per unit (comoving) volume of space, on scales which include significant numbers of galaxies, could be proportional to the star formation rate (SFR), at least to the formation rate of massive stars. Unfortunately both theory and observation imply that those SNe which give rise to gamma ray bursts occur in stars of low metallicity, less than half an order of magnitude lower than solar. Here we examine the evidence and show that although some workers believe that it is possible to use local galaxies with GRB's to calibrate the SFR in more distant galaxies others claim that this may be possible given independent ways of determining the metallicities of the distant galaxies, while others suggest that it is too difficult, at least with present measurements, to use GRB's to determine the SFR at values of redshift higher than 5. We conclude that although their intrinsic power gives GRB's the facility to guide observers towards star forming galaxies, only by also using complementary indicators will we be able to make plausible determinations of the SFR as a function of epoch beyond z = 5, i.e. during the first 2 Gyr after the Big Bang.