Guidelines to Research Platforms

Online Research Platforms

Prolific Academic LTD – A higher standard of online research* 
Dynata Holdings Corp. (Dynata, LLC) – The World’s Largest First-Party Data Platform*
Qualtrics LLC – Flexible Survey Tool*
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) - (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing marketplace
*Vendor is available in BuyWays (A quote will be needed)

Process:

  1. The requester must have an approved IRB protocol for the study that describes how the selected research platform will be used. To get IRB approval for your study please send an email to (irb.research@umassd.edu)
  2. Fill out a Business Expense Form for the selected platform and get it signed by all the required departments.
  3. Send the IRB approval letter and the Business Expense form to Zeina Madeiros (zmadeiros@umassd.edu) in Research Office.
  4. If MTURK is selected, the requester is required to download reports from MTURK into an excel spreadsheet as backup for the expense report; the reports need to be then sent to Research Office after each survey. Please follow the checklist on the following page to complete the process.

Checklist for Completion of Process:

The PI & Department/College Responsibilities are as follows:

IRB Approval Letter* – Required for human participant research. Follow the IRB
guidelines:
  1. Payment must be reasonable and appropriate to the research task(s).
  2. MTurk data collection tool resides on the Amazon servers and no
    assurance can be made as to its use for purposes other than
    research. Researchers are advised to collect data using Qualtrics, with
    known policies for data security and anonymity.

Business Expense Form -- Completed & signed by all required department levels. Indicate
whether or not the compensation is contingent upon certain conditions.

The IRB Approval letter and completed/signed Business Expense form must be sent to
Research Office for review and approval, before services are initiated.

PI Responsibilities – The PI is responsible for providing quotes to the Research Office so a purchase order can be created before the study occurs. It is the PI responsibility to send the invoice for payment to the Research Office once study is completed. The PI is responsible for creating the MTurk Requester Account(s)/reports for all completed MTurk services. The PI is responsible for downloading the Amazon reports into an Excel spreadsheet and forwarding them to Research Office for Bank Card backup.

ORI Responsibilities are as follows:

  • An email will be sent to the PI & Department Chair if financial reports from Amazon MTurk or invoices for open purchase orders have not been turned in within 30 business days after the transaction has been completed.
  • Responsible for the retention of Amazon MTurk reports.
  • Ensure that MTURK charges are placed on University Bank Card (Suzanne will clarify)

Guidelines Compliance:

  • Use of above listed research platforms is conditioned upon compliance with the above procedures. Failure to follow these procedures may result in termination or revocation of such services.
  • Please note, depending on the paperwork required, additional time may be needed in order to process a request. All questions and documents should be directed to Zeina Madeiros, Research Office at zmadeiros@umassd.edu