There have been several reports of bot attacks targeting online research. Specifically, these bot attacks target online research that:
- uses non-personal (anonymous) links to surveys or online tasks
- is promoted via social media platforms (e.g. Facebook)
- pays participants using digital vouchers
The aim of these bot attacks is to claim financial compensation for participation. When successful these bot attacks can quickly accrue financial losses. In addition, both successful and failed attacks can impact data quality by adding bot responses to datasets. Here we outline several steps that can be taken to prevent bot attacks from succeeding and/or detect bot input in your datasets.
When possible, avoid becoming a potential target to bot attacks: use personalized links/logins, promote your research via dedicated channels (i.e.
Sona Systems) or use a dedicated third party for recruitment, avoid using digital vouchers to pay your participants. In particular we suggest use a third-party recruitment company like
Prolific since these third parties take steps to prevent bot attacks and requires detailed personal information from participants, reducing the risk of misuse.
In some cases, alternative forms of recruitment and compensation will not be a suitable solution for your research. In these cases, we recommend implementing several changes in your surveys/online tasks aimed at blocking and/or detecting bot input.
We have compiled a manual on how to block and/or detect bot attacks for online data collection in Qualtrics and Gorilla. These steps include changing several security settings as well as adding additional questions and/tasks that are suitable to distinguish human and bot performance. These changes should act as a suitable deterrent against bot attacks and allow for the detection and removal of any bot data present in the collected datasets. The manual and template can be downloaded here.
We also offer a
Qualtrics questionnaire template for the purpose of collection the data necessary to request financial compensation using
digital vouchers. This package has been updated to include the same measures implemented for online data collection.
More information
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