Help using Prolific to invite a panel to a new study

⛑ Community Support
1

Hello Prolific Community,

I am trying to use a study design that is a bit complex and I wanted to get insight from the community and support, as well as simply confirmation about what is and isn’t possible with Prolific.

Step 1, I will run a survey on prolific to get a panel of participants that are willing to be invited for future studies on Prolific. Multiple future studies, so I don’t want to use this panel only once.

Step 2, I want to invite some of these participants to a study. These will usually be multiplayer studies where it is important to get everyone to arrive on time to be put into groups. Otherwise, participants wait for a while before everyone joins, get bored, and leave (or I have the pay them extra because they had to wait for so long). I only want to invite people from the panel, not panel + others. This means I would like to be able to warn participants in the morning about a study in the afternoon.

I understand that I can directly message participants on Prolific. I suppose that is what I would do in the morning. Can I give them a link directly to my next Prolific study via message? Then need to be able to sign up on Prolific right, not just get a link to my multiplayer experiment?

I understand that I can limit my study to only Prolific IDs from my panel (say the 100 participants from my panel that I want to invite). If I create a study this way it will send them an email right? If I schedule the study’s publishing, will it send an email when I create the study or when it is finally published?

Will they see the study straight away on Prolific (or on their browser add-on) as soon as it is published?

One issue with that is that the email to notify you that you got a message has a delay, and it gives you no insights into what the message is about. Nothing about who sent it, no title, no preview of what it contains (these would be nice features to add btw). Also, you only get a notification for those via email - why not in the browser add-on? So I am scared that participants would see this nondescript email from Prolific and not check what it is about. Then they get the email about the study that directly invites them (because I set the study to only their IDs) at the time the study is published (or even with a delay?) so they won’t join on time; hence, defeating the whole purpose. Also, that email about the study, I don’t know if I can edit it to have as much information as a message I would send directly through Prolific?

Any advice on how to use the Prolific system to schedule studies with participants, please?
Thank you for your time.

2

Hey Samuel :slight_smile:

Step 1, I will run a survey on prolific to get a panel of participants that are willing to be invited for future studies on Prolific. Multiple future studies, so I don’t want to use this panel only once.

This means I would like to be able to warn participants in the morning about a study in the afternoon.

  • If you need participants for particular slots, use a scheduling tool, so participants can then sign up for the time / date of the session that suits them.

  • If you’re just running one group experiment then it would be best if you just stated a time / date for this and asked participants to confirm if they would be free for this date / time. This should be in the study description ideally and should also be displayed at the very beginning of the study. Participants who aren’t free can be redirected and asked to return the study, and participants who are free can continue.

:arrow_right: Here’s the full guide on how to do this :arrow_left: :slight_smile:

Can I give them a link directly to my next Prolific study via message? Then need to be able to sign up on Prolific right, not just get a link to my multiplayer experiment?

  • It would be best if you scheduled the times with participants ahead of time using the process described above, otherwise you won’t be able to guarantee that participants will be online to see your messages at particular times.

If I create a study this way it will send them an email right? If I schedule the study’s publishing, will it send an email when I create the study or when it is finally published?

  • Yes, participants will get an email, and the study will appear on their dashboard, when it’s published. If they’re using the browser add-on, it will appear there too.

Then they get the email about the study that directly invites them (because I set the study to only their IDs) at the time the study is published (or even with a delay?) so they won’t join on time; hence, defeating the whole purpose.

  • If you schedule slots in with participants ahead of time, these issues shouldn’t be a problem :pray:

(these would be nice features to add btw)

  • Very good point! I’ll add this to the list of great community ideas!

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have further questions :slight_smile:

3

Hello Josh,
Thank you so much for your detailed reply.

A scheduling tool seems like a great solution! However, a major problem with these is that they seem to encourage people to enter their name or their email (e.g., Calendly forces users to enter both). This is potentially problematic with GDPR.

Does anyone know of a scheduling tool where I could ask people to confirm that they can come at a certain time, give them the link to the study, and never collect any sensitive information?

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4

Hello again,
I can’t seem to find a tool that does scheduling without encouraging or forcing people to give out identifying information such as names or emails. I am thinking of building my own tool. Are they other people that are interested in this sort of thing?

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Hey @Samuel_Dupret, sorry to hear you’ve not been able to find a tool.

Re collecting personal info via Calendly, our policy is:

Collection of personal information is not usually permitted on Prolific, so participants would need to be assured that any personal details if at all collected (e.g. Skype usernames) will only be used to contact them for the interview, and deleted as soon as this purpose has been fulfilled.

But I couldn’t say how this relates to GDPR, if that’s your main concern :slight_smile:

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Doodle does not seem to require that participants give their details. That an option.
Tim