Millisecond Forums

I think I understand this, but I just want to verify whether I am getting it correctly:

I am going to run Inquisit on the web, and I want my consent statement to appear at the beginning of my experiment.  However, since the text is long, I can use the htmlpage element to better control the display.  This means that, if necessary, a scrollbar will appear for participants to track the text extending beyond the frame of the window.  Also, I want participants to be able to download a .pdf file of the consent statement for their records (just in case they want it); I can accomplish this with the htmlpage by imbedding a link to the .pdf target, which I can upload to the folder along with my experiment script.

How am I doing so far?

Also, I have a couple of questions.  By using Inquisit 2.0 on the web, if Ps are opening the experiment with Mozilla Firefox, for example, will they still be able to open the .pdf link with Firefox?  In another post, it looked like a user was told that the Inquisit htmlpage element defaults to Windows Explorer, but I didn't know whether this was strictly a desktop issue.

Also, once Ps are finished reading my consent statement on the htmlpage, do they simply hit <Return> or <Enter> as they would for any text page, as specified in the experiment script?

Thanks a priori for correcting any of my faulty logic.  :-)

--Andy

Hi Andy,

Correct.

Yes. Or you might simply provide a link to the pdf consent form on the experiment's launch or finish page.

As far as I understand, Inquisit will use the Internet Explorer engine to display <htmlpage> elements regardless of which browser was used to start the web experiment (e.g. Firefox). Also, whether participants will be able to display the pdf in their browser depends on their system's settings (is there a pdf reader installed, is there a pdf browser plugin installed, have they set their browser to open pdfs directly, etc.).

This can be configured via your script's <instruct> element.

Best wishes from a fellow Inquisit user,

~Dave

And BTW, to test which browser engine Inquisit is using to render <htmlpage> files, simply prepare a HTML file with a little browser detection javascript in it and have Inquisit display it.

~Dave

Inquisit does indeed user Internet Explorer to display html content, regardless of which browser was used to launch the study. The reason is that IE is ubiquitous on Windows machines, and it has an API that allows it to be embedded in applications. No other browser has these properties.

Cheers,

Sean

Thanks Dave and Sean.  All of your assistance is immensely helpful to this novice!

I just have one point of confusion:  you say "you might simply provide a link to the pdf consent form on the experiment's launch or finish page."

That was what I had in mind all along.  I wanted my launch page to include the consent statement, which Ps would come to first, after linking to my experiment through the invitation e-mail I intend to broadcast.  At the bottom of the consent statment page would be the link to upload the scanned copy of the consent statment (stamped-approved by my IRB).

But I noticed that elkec was told on 4/22/09:  "I believe the only way to have a working link in an Inquisit script is to prepare a standard HTML page that contains the link and then have Inquisit present this as an instructions page via the <htmlpage> element."

From that, I assumed that my first preinstruction page would need to be an html page.  Are you saying that the launch and end pages don't need to use the <htmlpage> element in order to include working links?  If there is a simpler way to do what I need, I'm happy to learn about it!

Thanks again,

--Andy

You're mixing things up. The "launch page" is not a part of the actual Inquisit script. Instead, it's the HTML page that prompts participants to install the Inquisit plugin, etc. (example: http://www.millisecond.com/download/samples/v3/SelfPacedReading/SelfPacedReading.web). Usually, this "launch page" is generated through the web script wizard when uploading and registering your script. However, during this process you can opt to upload a "custom launch page", on which you could place a link to your consent form. Note that the "launch page" will be displayed by whatever browser a given participant may use (Firefox, IE, whatever), as it's not part of the actual Inquisit script.

However, once the script runs, any html content will be rendered by the IE engine, and my previous remarks (including the ones you cited) apply.

Make sense?

~Dave

I think so--thanks for clearing things up!  I guess I have focused so much on setting up the experiment with my desktop version that I haven't checked out the instructions for launcing on the web.  I'm sure it will make more sense when I go over that material.  :-)

--Andy

Good luck and let us know if you have additional questions!

~Dave