Millisecond Forums

One-Time Link or something similar

https://forums.millisecond.com/Topic29378.aspx

By slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020

Hello! 

I'm not very knowledgeable with all of Inquisit, but I am trying to help my lab on their upcoming study.

We are trying to find a way to prevent participants from repeating the study. Is it possible to make the link to the study only available once? Or something similar?
By Dave - 7/13/2020

slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020
Hello! 

I'm not very knowledgeable with all of Inquisit, but I am trying to help my lab on their upcoming study.

We are trying to find a way to prevent participants from repeating the study. Is it possible to make the link to the study only available once? Or something similar?

Using only Inquisit and nothing else, that's not really possible, no. You'd have to have your own webserver and some web programming experience.  Your site would need a database of the vaild one-time links would have to keep track of each participant's individual link (pointing to your site), That server of yours would then redirect the participant to the Inquisit start page if the link is valid. If it is not valid / has been used before, then the server would have to refrain from redirecting.

A participant, however, would still be able to repeat the experiment by visiting the Inquisit start page directly or by saving the redirection URL from their first (valid) attempt.
By slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020

Dave - 7/13/2020
slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020
Hello! 

I'm not very knowledgeable with all of Inquisit, but I am trying to help my lab on their upcoming study.

We are trying to find a way to prevent participants from repeating the study. Is it possible to make the link to the study only available once? Or something similar?

Using only Inquisit and nothing else, that's not really possible, no. You'd have to have your own webserver and some web programming experience.  Your site would need a database of the vaild one-time links would have to keep track of each participant's individual link (pointing to your site), That server of yours would then redirect the participant to the Inquisit start page if the link is valid. If it is not valid / has been used before, then the server would have to refrain from redirecting.

A participant, however, would still be able to repeat the experiment by visiting the Inquisit start page directly or by saving the redirection URL from their first (valid) attempt.

Oh ok thank you so much for your quick and helpful response!

Seeing now as so many studies are online, do you have any recommendations for only allowing participants to do the study once? It's hard to limit their participation when they aren't in person.
By slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020

slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020
Dave - 7/13/2020
slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020
Hello! 

I'm not very knowledgeable with all of Inquisit, but I am trying to help my lab on their upcoming study.

We are trying to find a way to prevent participants from repeating the study. Is it possible to make the link to the study only available once? Or something similar?

Using only Inquisit and nothing else, that's not really possible, no. You'd have to have your own webserver and some web programming experience.  Your site would need a database of the vaild one-time links would have to keep track of each participant's individual link (pointing to your site), That server of yours would then redirect the participant to the Inquisit start page if the link is valid. If it is not valid / has been used before, then the server would have to refrain from redirecting.

A participant, however, would still be able to repeat the experiment by visiting the Inquisit start page directly or by saving the redirection URL from their first (valid) attempt.

Oh ok thank you so much for your quick and helpful response!

Seeing now as so many studies are online, do you have any recommendations for only allowing participants to do the study once? It's hard to limit their participation when they aren't in person.
For more information, we're currently running an intervention where there is a control and experimental condition. And we run a risk of a participant doing the study again and being exposed to the opposite condition, in which we have to discard all of their data. So we're trying to prevent that from occurring. 
By Dave - 7/13/2020

slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020
Dave - 7/13/2020
slawsonvilla - 7/13/2020
Hello! 

I'm not very knowledgeable with all of Inquisit, but I am trying to help my lab on their upcoming study.

We are trying to find a way to prevent participants from repeating the study. Is it possible to make the link to the study only available once? Or something similar?

Using only Inquisit and nothing else, that's not really possible, no. You'd have to have your own webserver and some web programming experience.  Your site would need a database of the vaild one-time links would have to keep track of each participant's individual link (pointing to your site), That server of yours would then redirect the participant to the Inquisit start page if the link is valid. If it is not valid / has been used before, then the server would have to refrain from redirecting.

A participant, however, would still be able to repeat the experiment by visiting the Inquisit start page directly or by saving the redirection URL from their first (valid) attempt.

Oh ok thank you so much for your quick and helpful response!

Seeing now as so many studies are online, do you have any recommendations for only allowing participants to do the study once? It's hard to limit their participation when they aren't in person.

No, not beyond what I already outlined in my previous reply.

I mean, you can built some elaborate logic into a script that will prevent it from running if it sees some specific ID*, but that would entail constantly updating your script with a list of IDs that have already completed the study, which in most scenarios just isn't feasible if (1) you're expecting a large number of participants, and (2) are worried about repeats close in time (instead of a day or two apart).

* See e.g. https://www.millisecond.com/forums/Topic17596.aspx