Recorded metadata

The experiment records metadata from several sources:

url Params

Arbitrary url parameters can be appended to the URL using the format:

http://study.deliberation-lab.org/?param1=val1&param2=val2&param3=val3

There are several exceptions, which are used by mturk, prolific, or in debugging. The following have special meaning:

  • playerKey - used by our system to allow "virtual" players for use in debugging.
  • workerId - MTurk ID
  • assignmentId - MTurk HIT*worker combination
  • hitId - MTurk HIT
  • turkSubmitTo - MTurk completion URL
  • PROLIFIC_PID - Prolific participant ID
  • STUDY_ID - Prolific study ID
  • SESSION_ID - Prolific participant * study combination

BrowserInfo

  • width - the amount of horizontal space available in the browser window (in pixels)
  • height - the amount of vertical space available in the browser window (in pixels)
  • screenWidth - the width of the user's monitor display (in pixels)
  • screenHeight - the height of the user's monitor display (in pixels)
  • userAgent - information about which browser is being used
  • language - the preferred language of the user as set in the browser UI
  • timezone - the timezone setting of the user's operating system
  • referrer - the page that linked to the study (e.g. https:)

Connection Info

  • country - the two-letter (ISO 3166-1) country code of the inbound IP address
  • timezone - The ID of the time zone associated with location (e.g. America/Los_Angeles) of the inbound IP address
  • timezoneOffset - The UTC offset of the timezone (e.g. -07:00) of the inbound IP address
  • isKnownVpn - whether the inbound ip address comes from a list of known vpns
  • isLikelyVpn - having the browser timezone not match the ip timezone is sometimes a signal of vpn use

Each tracked link element saves a record under trackedLink_<name>. In the science export these are collected inside the trackedLinks object alongside surveys/prompts. Every record contains:

  • url, displayText, and name — the static definition of the link.
  • events — ordered list of { type, timestamp, stage, stageTimeSeconds, timeAwaySeconds? }.
  • totalTimeAwaySeconds and lastTimeAwaySeconds — summaries of focus gaps attributed to the link.

Use these to confirm that participants followed required external links and how long they were away from the Deliberation Lab tab.