This guide walks you through adding authenticity checks to a LimeSurvey study. For what these checks do and when to use them, see What are authenticity checks?
Heads up: the authenticity check script gets added to your LimeSurvey theme, not to an individual survey. If you use that theme for other surveys, the script will run on those too, but won’t collect data. Consider duplicating your theme first and applying the script to the copy, so it only affects this study.
Before you start
Your survey should already be built in LimeSurvey.
You'll need access to the Theme Editor in LimeSurvey. This is usually an admin-level permission, so check you have it before starting.
Your study should already exist as a draft on Prolific, with its study URL entered on the 'Data collection' page. The authenticity check script is generated from this URL.
What you'll do
Confirm participant IDs are being recorded
Add the authenticity check script to your theme
Step 1: Confirm participant IDs are being recorded
Use the URL parameters option in Prolific. In the 'Recording Prolific IDs' section, enter your LimeSurvey study URL in the 'What is the URL of your study?' box, then select 'URL parameters'. This automatically adds the necessary GET parameters to your URL.
LimeSurvey will need a specific parameter name for the Prolific ID.
Step 2: Add the authenticity check script to your theme
On the 'Data collection' page in Prolific, find the 'Authenticity checks' section. Check the box for the checks you want to use, then copy the generated script.
In LimeSurvey, go to 'Themes', then 'Theme Editor'.
Select the theme your survey uses (for example, Bootstrap Vanilla).
Open 'layout_global.twig'.
Paste the script [[NEEDS INPUT: exact placement is unclear from the source instructions — one version says to insert it under the
<head>section, another says to insert it at the very end, just before</body>. These are different locations. Confirm which is correct before publishing.]]Save your changes.
For what your results mean and how to act on them, see How to review your authenticity check results.
What's next
How to review your authenticity check results