We know Institutional Review Board (IRB) applications* can be complex and there are a lot of questions to answer. We want to try and help where we can! We've gathered answers for a lot of the typical questions that come up below.
*If you're based in the UK you may know these as Research Ethics Committee (REC) applications.
- About Prolific
- Participant sourcing
- Participant vetting and identifiers
- Participant payments
- Participant screening and consent
- How old are Prolific’s participants?
- How does Prolific screen participants?
- How many participants does Prolific have in my required demographic?
- Are Prolific participants protected by data privacy policies?
- Can participants choose whether or not to take part in a study?
- What information do participants see when choosing whether to participate in a study?
- How can I obtain consent from participants on Prolific?
- Data collection
About Prolific
What is Prolific?
Prolific helps you recruit and manage participants for your online research. Design your survey or experiment in another tool (e.g. Qualtrics, Gorilla, a custom-built tool), then connect your study to Prolific. Filter to the participants you need, using over 300 free filters. Once you’ve collected and reviewed participant responses, you can approve and pay participants in just a few clicks.
Where is Prolific located?
Prolific’s headquarters are in London, UK. We have a UK and a US office. Our registered address is Prolific Academic Ltd., 483 Green Lanes, London, England, N13 4BS.
Where can I find more details about Prolific’s policies and details?
Please find links to our policies, address, and VAT number here.
Participant sourcing
Where does Prolific source its participants from?
Participants are primarily recruited to Prolific via word-of-mouth or social media. Participants can also be invited to join Prolific by researchers via our “Bring your own participants” tool. In 2014, when Prolific was founded, participants were primarily recruited through social media, flyer distribution on campuses, and the Prolific referral scheme (ended March 2019).
How does Prolific advertise its services to participants?
We advertise Prolific as a way to earn money in exchange for contributing to world-changing research. Please view our “Become a participant” webpage for more information on how we set expectations with Prolific participants.
Participant vetting and identifiers
How does Prolific ensure participants are real and human?
We use a third-party tool to ID verify all participants are unique and real. We also have over 50 checks that monitor the quality of their responses and detection of LLM use. Learn more here.
How does the quality of Prolific participant responses compare to other online platforms?
When compared to other online recruitment tools, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, Prolific consistently delivers a high standard of data quality online. See below for published comparative research.
Douglas BD, Ewell PJ, Brauer M (2023) Data quality in online human-subjects research: Comparisons between MTurk, Prolific, CloudResearch, Qualtrics, and SONA. PLoS ONE 18(3): e0279720. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279720
Albert, D.A., Smilek, D. Comparing attentional disengagement between Prolific and MTurk samples. Sci Rep 13, 20574 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-46048-5
Pe'er, Eyal and Rothschild, David M. and Evernden, Zak and Gordon, Andrew and Damer, Ekaterina, Data Quality of Platforms and Panels for Online Behavioral Research (January 10, 2021). http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-021-01694-3, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3765448 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3765448
How are Prolific’s participants kept anonymous?
Participants are only known to researchers by their Prolific ID (a unique identifier assigned on the platform). This means study responses and the limited demographic, screening and performance data we make available about participants is pseudonymised (i.e. associated only with that Prolific ID rather than any direct identifiers, such as names or addresses). Any correspondence or interactions with participants on the Prolific platform is also only made via participant’s Prolific ID. Learn more here.
Can I obtain personally identifiable information from Prolific participants?
We take the privacy of participants and the maintenance of their anonymity seriously at Prolific. You cannot ask participants for any information that could risk identifying them directly, e.g. names, addresses and social media accounts. Learn more here about what you cannot ask.
Participant payments
How are Prolific participants compensated?
We only allow participants to be paid via monetary rewards, rather than with vouchers or points. Payments must also be made through the Prolific platform.
What are Prolific’s rules around fair pay of participants?
We believe that fair pay leads to better data quality. It is up to researchers to decide how much to pay participants, however the minimum pay allowed is ÂŁ6.00 / $8.00 per hour and we recommend you pay participants at least ÂŁ9.00 / $12.00 per hour. Learn more about our payment principles.
How do participant payments work?
At the end of your study, you need to place the completion code provided by Prolific. When a participant gets to the end of your study, they’ll submit the completion code back into Prolific. They’ll then appear in the Prolific app as having completed your study. When you approve their response, it automatically pays the participant. Learn more here.
Participant screening and consent
How old are Prolific’s participants?
Participants have to be at least 18 years old to register to use Prolific and take part in studies.
How does Prolific screen participants?
When participants join Prolific, they are asked a variety of questions about themselves. They are unaware of whether there will be studies relating to those questions or not. When you filter to specific demographics, only the participants that match your target demographics will be shown your study.
How many participants does Prolific have in my required demographic?
To explore our active participant pool take a look at our audience checker tool. As you add each filter, it will show the number of active participants we have in your chosen demographic. We class “active” participants as having participated in a study within the last 3 months.
Are Prolific participants protected by data privacy policies?
Yes, we take the protection of our participants’ data very seriously. See our guidance on data collection and participant security, and our Participant Privacy Notice here.
Can participants choose whether or not to take part in a study?
Yes, participation in any study is an active decision by the participant. Participants will see the study appear on their computer screen, and then choose whether or not to take part.
What information do participants see when choosing whether to participate in a study?
They see the study name, description, total compensation amount, the time it takes to complete the study, the number of places in the study, and what device they’re allowed to take the study on.
How can I obtain consent from participants on Prolific?
You can add a question at the beginning of your study which asks participants to explicitly consent to take part in the study by selecting “I consent”. Please refer to your university guidelines around what to include when seeking consent. We also have some information here.
If participants do not consent, redirect them to a separate end-of-study page with the following message: 'As you have indicated that you do not consent to participate in this study, please return this submission on Prolific by selecting the 'stop without completing' button'. This means participants can return their submission and their spot will open up to a new participant.
Data collection
Does Prolific see or store the data from my study?
Prolific can only see the name and description for your study, and any other inputted data within the Prolific app, such as demographic filters selected and the link to your study. Prolific cannot see or store the responses participants give you.
Should there be a data processing agreement (DPA) in place between a researcher and Prolific?
No, we do not act as a data processor as we do not process and store participant responses to your study. Learn more here about why we don’t need to put a DPA in place.
The exception to this is if you use Prolific’s built-in Survey Builder tool to list your study. In this case, we will act as your data processor in relation to the contents of any submissions from participants. We’ve already included a DPA in our Survey Builder - Supplementary Terms to cover this, so that when you use Survey Builder that’s already incorporated into your agreement with us.
Feedback
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