MicroBatch is now a Pro Feature

TurkPrime is announcing a change in our pricing for the MicroBatch feature. MicroBatch is now included as a Pro feature, with a fee of 2 cents + 5% per complete. This will also provide users with access to all other pro features, with no additional charge. This change is necessary so that we can continue to provide the highest quality service and tools that our users expect.

To explain the new pricing structure further, see the following example (the part highlighted in blue reflects the recent change):

Study Example: # of HITs: 100

Payment per HIT: $1

Without MicroBatch: Total Study Cost = $140 With MicroBatch: Total Study Cost = $127 Payment to Workers: $100 Payment to Workers = $100 MTurk Fees (40%) = $40 MTurk Fees (20%) = $20 TurkPrime Fees (0%) = $0 TurkPrime Fees (2 cents + 5% per complete) = $7 Savings of 13%

Since its inception 3 years ago, TurkPrime has been dedicated to enhancing the quality and usability of online research with the goal of empowering researchers. The Team at TurkPrime remains committed to this mission. As more researchers come to use our platform and the online sampling world continues to evolve, we have taken on more staff, so that we can continue to provide individualized customer support to each of our users, and develop new tools to expand and improve functionality.

We greatly appreciate our relationship with our users, and know that this change will allow us to continue providing high quality service and equipping the research community with the tools and features they need. We also know that for some users this change was unexpected.  If you have a funded grant with funds allocated to participant collection based on our previous pricing, please contact us so that we can honor our previous pricing. We look forward to your feedback, and to assisting you in getting the most out of your research and TurkPrime.

We are Hiring: Project manager/research assistant position (full time)

TurkPrime

Queens, NY

Project Manager/Research Assistant

Background: TurkPrime is a web-based platform for online participant recruitment for the social and behavioral sciences, market research, and medical research. TurkPrime was launched in May, 2015, and currently serves over 6,000 subscribers from universities and corporate institutions around the world. Over 3,000  studies are conducted on TurkPrime each month.

The TurkPrime Toolkit is a set of cutting edge research tools allowing for flexible online study management and data collection using multiple platforms including Mechanical Turk. TurkPrime manages a panel of over 150,000 Mechanical Turk respondents, and partners with multiple additional sample providers through API integration to achieve a global reach of over 20 million respondents. The combination of robust research tools as well as an extensively profiled participant pool allows TurkPrime clients to conduct high quality research flexibly and effectively.

TurkPrime is also actively engaged in academic research focusing on, but not limited to,  online data collection methodology1-5. The research team at TurkPrime works closely with our software development team to make sure that TurkPrime’s system and research practices are grounded in solid empirical research, and that the features we provide are beneficial to a wide range of researchers. TurkPrime’s research team has a track record of peer-reviewed publications that address issues such as the contribution of its software to research design and data quality, assessment and improvement of data quality on Mechanical Turk, and selective recruitment from Mechanical Turk and other platforms.

We are looking for a full time project manager/research assistant with extremely strong communication, organizational and writing skills to manage projects, help clients with technical questions, collect data for online projects, and help write peer-reviewed papers, white papers, and blog entries.  

Responsibilities: The key responsibilities for the position include: client management including responding to TurkPrime users’ questions, managing complex client projects (e.g. intensive longitudinal, diary, dyadic, and video interview studies), writing a weekly blog, study design and data collection, supporting the writing of peer-reviewed and white papers, maintaining project documentation, managing project data and materials, and quality control.

Skills: Extremely high writing and communication skills; Exceptional organization and attention to detail; Ability to use web communication and documentation software effectively; Team-oriented; Very strong work ethic; Multi-tasking; Self-starter and industrious; Adaptivity to rapidly changing demands in a high performance workplace; Background in scientific methodology (B.A. or more is required for the position).  Experience with conducting online research and knowledge of online research software (Qualtrics, Millisecond, MTurk etc) is a plus. Data analysis skills are a plus. Interest in publishing peer-reviewed papers is a plus.

Notes: TurkPrime is based in Kew Gardens Hills, NY. Initially, the project manager would be expected to be in the Kew Gardens Hills office 4 days per week. Over time, a more flexible schedule will be considered. TurkPrime is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages applications from members of groups underrepresented in science and technology industries.  

Applying: Please send a resume and a letter of interest to leib.litman@turkprime.com.   

Representative Recent Publications

1.   Litman, L., Robinson, J. Online Research on Mechanical Turk and Other Platforms. Sage Publications. Innovations in Methodology Series (367 pages). Scheduled to be published in 2018.
2.   Litman, L., Robinson, J., & Rosenzweig, C. (2015). The relationship between motivation, monetary compensation, and data quality among US and India-based workers on Mechanical Turk. Behavior Research Methods, 47(2), 519-528.
3.   Litman, L., Robinson, J., & Abberbock, T. (2016). TurkPrime. com: A versatile crowdsourcing data acquisition platform for the behavioral sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 1-10.
4.   Litman, L., Williams, M. T., Rosen, Z., Weinberger-Litman, S. L., & Robinson, J. (2017). Racial Disparities in Cleanliness Attitudes Mediate Consumer Attitudes toward Cleaning Products: A Serial Mediation Model. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 1-9. (Developed methods relating to selective recruitment on Mechanical Turk).
5.   Litman, L., Robinson, J., Weinberger-Litman, S. L., & Finkelstein, R. (2017). Both Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religious Orientation are Positively Associated with Attitudes Toward Cleanliness: Exploring Multiple Routes from Godliness to Cleanliness. Journal of Religion and Health, 1-12. (Developed methods relating to selective recruitment on Mechanical Turk).

New Feature: Exclude Highly Active Workers

Some workers on MTurk are extremely active, and take the majority of posted HITs. This can lead to many issues, some of which are outlined in our previous post. Although MTurk has over 100,000 workers who take surveys each year, and around 25,000 who take surveys each month, you are much more likely to recruit highly active workers who take a majority of HITs. About 1,000 workers (1% of workers) take 21% of the HITs. About 10,000 workers (10% of workers) take 74% of all HITs.

TurkPrime now has a feature to allow researchers to exclude the most active workers so that you can collect data from less experienced workers who are less likely to have previously taken part in research similar to your own. Below is a screenshot of the “Naivete (Exclude most active Workers)” feature. You can select what percentage of workers you would like to exclude from the dropdown menu seen below. 

Upcoming New Content on the Blog

Greetings Reader,

We would like to inform you of upcoming new content to the blog! We have been posting sporadically, but plan to have weekly content for you in the future. Posts will cover a host of topics relating to conducting research online. We will aim to provide content that can be useful to both novice and more experienced readers. Content will explain features of MTurk and TurkPrime, as well as Prime Panels, that people may want to better understand. Posts may also often have suggestions for best practices based on our knowledge of how to get the most out of online research on MTurk and beyond. We will also discuss hot topic issues as they arise, and are additionally happy to take some requests from readers for future posts as well.

The TurkPrime Team hopes that you will find these blogs informative. We are committed to providing information to our users that can enhance their use of TurkPrime, and their knowledge of issues in online research.