[lookit-research] New Policies - Preventing scammers on Children Helping Science

[Melissa Kline]

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
<https://lookit.readthedocs.io/en/develop/researchers-spam-prevention.html> 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
<https://lookit.readthedocs.io/en/develop/researchers-spam-prevention.html>
!

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://lookit.mit.edu>
http://www.melissaklinestruhl.com/ <https://www.melissaklinestruhl.com>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/lookit-research/attachments/20231204/43b3ea6a/attachment.htm>