From mekline at mit.edu Mon Dec 4 11:15:07 2023 From: mekline at mit.edu (Melissa Kline) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 11:15:07 -0500 Subject: [lookit-research] New Policies - Preventing scammers on Children Helping Science Message-ID: Dear all, This is a follow-up to information we sent out in the Fall regarding fraudulent participation on Children Helping Science. Thanks to the careful work of CHS researchers, we've developed some strategies for responding to this numerically rare but obnoxious issue, and are now moving forward with some policies designed to streamline and improve how we maintain the extremely high quality of data collection on Children Helping Science. The primary message I would like you to take away from this email is that *the studies most at risk of fraudulent participation are new studies*. Some scammers will make multiple accounts that e.g. lie about their location and the age of their children, and in the excitement of launching a new study (and the fast wave of data that usually accompanies a new posting) it can be easy for researchers to miss this if they are not being cautious. To combat this, we have taken three steps that all researchers need to be aware of: - There is a new documentation page on preventing fraudulent participation on Children Helping Science. All researchers, and especially PIs and those in charge of managing studies, should read this page and implement the suggested lab practices. In particular, we now maintain a private "rogues gallery" available to researchers, with photos of the people who are known to make multiple accounts to attack new studies. Read the documentation to find out how to get access to these photos. - We have introduced a new study requirement: *all **(internal and external) **studies that pay participants* must include a visual check that study participants are acting in good faith (i.e. that a child of the correct age is present and the family is attempting to participate in the study as designed) prior to compensating them. The majority of studies already meet this requirement via the Lookit video consent frame or during Zoom sessions. Options for meeting this requirement and working with your IRB on any changes are discussed in the documentation above. - A "white hat hack" exercise is beginning, during which volunteers will be attempting to contribute small amounts of (detectably) fraudulent data into your studies. Labs that fail to detect these attempts may have studies paused by CHS staff so we can discuss with you how to prevent future attacks. These attempts are designed to be easily detectable using basic data-quality procedures - learn more in the documentation ! Wishing everyone a smooth end to your semesters/quarters where applicable, and an early happy holiday season to all, - Melissa Kline Struhl -- Melissa Kline Struhl Lookit Executive Director Research Scientist, MIT Brain & Cognitive Sciences mekline at mit.edu https://lookit.mit.edu/ http://www.melissaklinestruhl.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: