How to transfer MTurk workers' IDs to your survey on Qualtrics

The following steps will enable you to transfer a MTurk worker's ID from MTurk to your Qualtrics survey:

1. Create a new HIT on MTurk and, in the Design Layout section, switch to source code mode. 
2. In the place where you want your survey link to appear, enter the following script:
   <div id="myelementLink" style="display: inline; font-family: Verdana;"><tt>URL not shown because there is an error with Javascript on your computer. To perform this HIT, you must have Javascript and cookies enabled on your browser.</tt></div>

   <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"><!--

   var assignment_id_field = document.getElementById('myelementLink');

   var paramstr = window.location.search.substring(1);

   var parampairs = paramstr.split("&");

   var mturkworkerID = "";

   for (i in parampairs) {

     var pair = parampairs[i].split("=");

     if (pair[0] == "workerId")

       mturkworkerID = pair[1];

   }

   if (mturkworkerID == "" ) {

     assignment_id_field.innerHTML = '<tt>The link will appear here only if you accept this HIT.</tt>';

   } else {

     assignment_id_field.innerHTML = '<a target="_blank" href="https://YOUR_QUALTRICS_SURVEY_URL_GOES_HERE&MID=' + mturkworkerID + '"><h1><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><b>CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY!</b></span></span></h1></a>';

   }

   
   

   // --></script>

   
   

   <div class="link" id="linkDiv">&nbsp;</div>

   
   
   
   
3.  Replace the survey url in the code (where it says "YOUR_QUALTRICS_SURVEY_URL_GOES_HERE") with your survey url. (make sure there is no space between the survey url and the code that follows it).
4. Switch back to regular edit mode. You will see, where the survey link should be displayed, a message that says "URL not shown because there is an error with JavaScript on your computer...". This is normal. Don't worry. 
5. Move to the Preview and Finish mode. Now the error message should be replaced by "The link will appear here only if you accept this HIT.". This is how your workers will view the HIT (if the error message still appears, you did something wrong and it won't work). 
6. In your Qualtrics survey, add an embedded data element in your survey called MID, and set it to be populated from the survey url. This will store each worker's ID in your survey data. 
7. Publish your survey through your HIT and collect your data! 

Note on asking workers to accept your HIT beforehand: Some workers object to accepting a HIT beforehand. The method above requires it. What I do to appease workers is add some text that says "We have to ask you to accept this HIT because we need to verify that you have not completed this survey before. According to MTurk support, accepting and then returning HITs does not affect your account or your eligibility to complete other HITs." 

In some case, I also add the full survey url (without the script) so workers who really object to accepting HITs beforehand can use it. This, of course, will defeat your original goal so it's up to you whether you want to do it or not. From my experience (and also some data I collected), HITs that use the above method show similar response rates to those that do not. In the past, I used to get some complaints from workers, but these died out in the recent months so maybe workers are getting used to this type of request. 

Best of luck in your research!

Random assingments to different surveys

Qualtrics can randomly assign participants to conditions or blocks within a given survey pretty well. But what happens if you have several surveys and you want to randomly assign participants across all surveys?

When I needed to do that, I decided to create another survey which I called "randomizer". In that survey's flow, I added a Randomizer element that contained several End of Survey elements. In each of the End of Survey elements, I customized the End of survey message to be a redirection to one of my actual surveys (see image below).

This way, I could direct all my participants to one url, the one for the "randomizer" survey, and from there they would be randomly re-directed to one of my surveys.

Question's timestamp on Qualtrics

If you want Qualtrics to record the full timestamp (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss.ss) a participant viewed or clicked on a question, and not just the response time, you can use this javascript code:

Qualtrics.SurveyEngine.addOnload(function()
{  
  var timeStampOfOnLoad = new Date();
  Qualtrics.SurveyEngine.setEmbeddedData('timeStampOfOnLoad_QID1', timeStampOfOnLoad);
  //alert('QID1 '+timeStampOfOnLoad);
  this.questionclick = function(event,element){
    var timeStampOfAnswer = new Date();
    Qualtrics.SurveyEngine.setEmbeddedData('timeStampOfAnswer_QID1', timeStampOfAnswer);
    //alert('QID1 '+timeStampOfAnswer);
  }
}
);

Find your question on Qualtrics and click on the let-hand button and choose "Add Javascript". Copy and paste the above code (in whole) and change the "QID" parameter to your question's ID. 

You will also need to add an Embedded Data element to your survey flow with the same name as the value after the ".setEmbeddedData" function in the code (e.g., timeStampOfOnLoad_QID1 ). The first var in the code records the timestamp the question was viewable to the participants and the second one records the timestamp of the first click the participant made. If you want both, create two Embedded Data elements in your survey flow.

Bulk bonuses on MTurk

We (my RA Rob and I) found a way to give bonuses to multiple workers at a time. Here's how you can do it:

1. Download and Install mTurk Command Line Tools (https://requestersandbox.mturk.com/developer/tools/clt)
2. Download your Results file from the Manage tab on MTurk
3. On a new sheet, create the following columns that will read the info from the results sheet:
1. Workerid
2. Bonus (a value you should enter)
3. Assignmentid
4. Reason (a value you should enter)
4. Then, create a formula that combines these values to the following format:
   grantBonus –workerId [WorkerID] –amount [Bonus Amount, in Dollars] ­–assignment [AssignmentID] –reason [Reason for Bonus, in quotation marks]
   The formula should be something like:
   ="grantbonus "&"-workerid "&A2&" -amount "&B2&" -assignment "&C2&" -reason "&D2
   
   The result of the formula should be like this, for example:
   grantBonus –workerId A3C4G8DMXFG5PQ –amount 0.25 ­–assignment ZYJZWSCAT0DZRFY5KYP00S0ZS8Y5H0NZR9YAMY1Z –reason "Good job"
5. Populate the columns and formula with all the rows you need
6. Copy and paste all of the populated formula rows into the Command Line Tool.The commands will run automatically, except for the last row. You will need to push enter one more time to run the last command.
7. You should get a message saying "bonus assigned to worker X" after each row
8. Note: If you get an error message that says you need to be on a secure connection for the commands to run, go to the “bin” folder within the mTurk program folder (which should be something like “mech-turk-tools-1.3.0” unless you named it something else). Open “mturk.properties” as a text file, and replace anything that says “http” with “https.”
9. If you want to check that the workers got the bonuses, you should go the Manage HITs Individually on MTurk, find your HIT, and click on Review Submissions. The bonus should appear below each worker's row.

Good luck!

Screening AMT participants from previous studies

Sometimes, you want to make sure some AMT workers, who took one of your previous studies, cannot take your current study. We found a way to do that using a simple script on AMT and a pre-screening survey on Qualtrics. More details in this post on the Experimental Turk blog. 

Update: You can also use Qualifications on AMT as detailed here - https://experimentalturk.wordpress.com/2015/02/18/excluding-mturk-workers-who-participated-in-your-previous-studies-an-excel-solution/