Sessions prolific
Launching a Prolific Session¶
Prolific sessions allow you to host your experiment on FindingFive while recruiting participants through Prolific. FindingFive and Prolific work together to provide participants with a seamless experience, without requiring them to create FindingFive accounts.
Prolific manages participant identities and rewards
Because participants are recruited through Prolific, participant identity, eligibility criteria, demographic filtering, and compensation are managed by Prolific rather than FindingFive. FindingFive uses the participant IDs provided by Prolific to track participation and prevent the same participant from completing the same session more than once.
Set up your Prolific and FindingFive sessions at the same time
The FindingFive session launcher is designed to be completed alongside the corresponding study setup on Prolific. As you configure your FindingFive session, the launcher will guide you through the settings needed to connect the two systems.
Are You Ready to Launch?¶
Before launching a recruitment session, make sure to check the following:
- You have permission to launch a session of this study. You must either own the study yourself, or be a collaborator with session launching permissions. If you are not, contact the study owner to request the necessary permissions.
- You have an active FindingFive subscription. A subscription is required to recruit participants. Plans start as low as $20/year, but you can find the right plan for your needs on our pricing page.
- You have acquired all necessary permissions from your supervisory ethics board (IRB, REC, etc.). This is human subjects research, after all! You know the drill.
- You have a PDF of your approved consent form on hand. You will need to upload it as part of session setup.
- If using FindingFive’s cash payment system, you have sufficient funds in your account to cover all participant payouts and payment processing fees. This does not apply if you are using course credits or rewarding participants outside of FindingFive.
- You have recently completed a full preview of your experiment. In some cases, FindingFive will not allow you to launch a recruitment session until you have completed a full preview. In other cases, it is still a good idea to help identify issues that might otherwise cause problems or confusion for your participants.
- You have downloaded that preview data and verified that it includes what you expect. Nothing would be more frustrating than downloading your data after your experiment is complete only to find that critical response data were not properly collected. By checking the data after a preview, you greatly reduce the risk of this happening.
Once you can check each of these boxes, you are ready to set up a session and start recruiting participants!
Select Prolific Recruitment¶
From the study editor page of the study you wish to recruit for, click Recruit and select From Prolific.
Click Confirm to open FindingFive's session launcher, which provides a step-by-step process for configuring all details of your session.
FindingFive saves your progress
You can leave the session launcher and return to it at any time by once again selecting Recruit and choosing the same session type. FindingFive will give you the option of picking up where you left off.
Step 1: Welcome¶
The Welcome page provides the information you need to connect session of your FindingFive study to a study on Prolific.
We recommend starting a new study on Prolific before proceeding. As you work through FindingFive's session setup wizard, configure the corresponding settings on Prolific at the same time, but do not publish your Prolific study yet.
Private Study URL¶
FindingFive generates a private URL that allows Prolific participants—and only Prolific participants—to access your session.
Click the this URL link to view and copy the URL, then paste it into Prolific's What's the URL of your study field.
Participants who enter through this URL will be recognized as coming from Prolific. The session will not be publicly listed among available studies on FindingFive.
Seamless Participation¶
When configuring your study on Prolific, select I'll use URL parameters for recording Prolific IDs.
This allows Prolific to pass participant identifiers to FindingFive automatically when participants enter the study. Participants can therefore be identified without creating or signing in to FindingFive accounts.
Completion Code Integration¶
Prolific uses completion codes to confirm that participants have successfully completed a study.
Find the completion code for the default completion path in your Prolific study and enter it in the field provided on this page.
After a participant successfully completes your experiment, FindingFive automatically passes this completion code back to Prolific on the participant's behalf. This allows Prolific to recognize that the participant completed the study without requiring the participant to manually enter or submit a completion code.
Eligibility Control by Prolific¶
Participant eligibility for Prolific sessions is managed through Prolific rather than FindingFive.
FindingFive's participation-history eligibility criteria and demographic filters therefore do not apply to these sessions. Configure any participant eligibility requirements you need when setting up your study on Prolific.
FindingFive will still prevent the same Prolific participant from participating in the same FindingFive session more than once.
When you are ready to continue, click Next.
Step 2: Task Details¶
The Task Details page collects the information that will be displayed to potential participants who visit your study's unique URL.
What's the name of this experiment (to the participant)?¶
Enter the name that participants will see when deciding whether to participate in your study. Choose a clear and descriptive title that accurately reflects the purpose of the experiment without revealing information that could bias participant responses.
This field is required.
What will the participants do? List any requirements here as well.¶
Provide a brief description of the participant experience. Researchers commonly use this field to describe:
- The purpose of the study.
- The activities participants will complete.
- Any technical requirements.
- Any participation requirements not enforced automatically by FindingFive.
Participants may use this information to determine whether they are interested in participating and whether they meet the requirements for the study.
This field is required.
Privacy Level¶
For Prolific sessions, the privacy level is automatically set to Good and cannot be changed. You will receive the Prolific IDs of participants who complete or quit the experiment. These IDs are provided because participant identities are managed by Prolific rather than FindingFive.
As with other session types, participant identifiers are never linked to study response data.
Consent Form¶
Upload the consent form that participants should review before deciding whether to participate. Consent forms must be uploaded as PDF files. Researchers are responsible for ensuring that all consent materials accurately reflect the procedures approved by their IRB, REC, or other supervisory ethics board.
Once you have completed the Task Details page, click Next.
Step 3: Time Requirements¶
The Time Requirements page allows you to estimate how long participation should take and define how long the recruitment session should remain active.
Based on your best estimate, completing this experiment should generally take [X] minutes.¶
Enter your estimate of how long it should take participants to complete the experiment under normal conditions. This estimate is displayed to participants before they begin the study and may influence their decision to participate.
Researchers should provide a realistic estimate based on pilot testing, study previews, or previous experience with similar experiments whenever possible.
Kick out participants if they don't finish in [X] minutes.¶
This setting defines the maximum amount of time participants may spend in the experiment before they are automatically removed. Leaving this setting blank or setting it to 0 disables the timeout entirely, allowing participants to take as long as they need to complete the study.
Researchers are generally encouraged to provide participants with as much time as practical, particularly for longer studies or studies where interruptions may be common. A common approach is to set the timeout substantially higher than the expected completion time.
Participants that time out are reported separately from completed and abandoned participations in the session summary. However, data from timed-out (and abandoned) participations are not included when exporting the session's participant data.
Once launched, this session will stay open for [X] days and [Y] hours.¶
This setting determines how long the recruitment session will remain active after launch. Once the specified duration has elapsed, new participants will no longer be able to join the session. The session will also automatically close once the requested number of participants have been recruited, even if the specified duration has not yet expired.
Researchers should select a duration that provides sufficient time to recruit the desired number of participants while remaining consistent with project deadlines and recruitment goals.
When you are satisfied with your time requirements, click Next.
Step 4: Number of Participants¶
The Number of Participants page allows you to specify how many participants to recruit.
This session will recruit [X] participants.¶
Enter the total number of participants you would like to recruit for this session. The session will automatically close once this number of participants have successfully completed the study, even if the session's scheduled duration has not yet expired.
Note that only successfully completed participations count toward this total.
Assign participants to the same groups as they were in the following prerequisite study.¶
Select this option when participants should remain in the same participant groups they were assigned to in an earlier Prolific study. This option is useful for multi-study or longitudinal research designs where participants need to remain in the same experimental group or condition across studies.
This option is only available when the current study uses participant groups. If participant grouping is not configured for the current study, the option cannot be selected.
To enable, select the checkbox and choose the relevant prerequisite study from the dropdown menu. Only previous Prolific-based studies are available.
When you are satisfied with your recruitment target, click Next.
Final Step: Review and Launch¶
The Review and Launch page summarizes your session configuration before the session is created. Review the information carefully to ensure that everything is correct before proceeding.
Important details listed¶
Important details, such as the number of participants to be recruited, compensation details, and any limits on eligibility will be listed here and should be carefully reviewed. Note that the specific details listed will depend on the specific configuration of your session.
A session fee invoice may be generated...¶
This notice refers to FindingFive's session fees, which may apply to your session when you download your data if you have exceeded your subscription plan's free participation record quota.
Will session fees apply?
Depending on your subscription plan, a certain number of completed participation records are included at no additional cost. If the total number of completed participation records downloaded across your account exceeds your plan's complimentary quota, a session fee invoice may be generated when you download this session's participant data.
Unlike participant rewards and payment processing fees, session fees cannot be calculated at the time of session launch because they depend on your cumulative participation record usage when your session data are downloaded. Please see our cost management FAQ for more information.
Launch¶
When you are satisfied with your session configuration, click Launch to create the recruitment session. Once the session has been launched, participants can begin joining immediately using the session URL.
Data Sharing Agreement¶
By launching a session, you agree to share session-related data with FindingFive.
As a nonprofit organization, FindingFive uses these data to improve the platform and the experiences of researchers and participants. No action is required beyond launching the session.