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FAQs

Below you will find some basic information where we hope to answer some of your preliminary questions. Many of the specifics will be answered, once you are logged in and start setting up your SPTE.

Who Should You Cite?

  • Seib, Drew, Anand E. Sokhey, and Todd Makse. 2026. "Talking Politics Research: An Online Platform for Designing Social Process Tracing Experiments."

Pre-Made Campaign Data For You to Use

  • Early Voting Project: This is already on the dashboard as sample campaign data to load in.

What about surveys?

At this time, you can create three total surveys from the dashboard once logged in. Officially, these are named, pre-survey, post-survey, and a second post-survey, but logically, you can choose to put them in any order. In addition, there is a pre-build SPTE survey that you can elect to use with the click of a box.

How to Use with Qualtrics

Pre-Survey

  • Create your survey in Qualtrics.
    • Create a hidden variable called "participantid" that gets passed via URL to DPTE. e.g yourqualtricsSurvey.com?participantid=[feed Qualtrics participantid here] If you don't create a pre-survey in Qualtrics the program will assign a participantid to send back to Qualtrics

Post Survey

  • In the survey flow tab of your Qualtrics survey, select add new element and then embedded data.
  • Add a field for "participantid." Do not set a value.
  • Move this block to the top of your survey flow. This allows Qualtrics to capture the particpantid value for your participant as they enter Qualtrics.
  • Publish your survey
  • Copy your Qualtics survey link.
  • In the Dashboard, under organize, select Qualtrics where in your project order you want your participant directed to your Qualtrics survey and save your selections.
  • Under Add a Survey or Tool, select use Qualtrics.
  • Paste the link to your Qualtrics survey and save.

Can I use Images?

Yes! You will be able to add images after you first create your campaign. Then on your dashboard find the card to update campaign info. You can add additional campaign information, including images there. As a practical piece of advice, keep images small. The max size is 512KB. The smaller, the better for page load times. File types accepted: jpg, jpeg, png, gif

Can I use Video?

Yes! You can imbed video from Vimeo. There is not sufficient space on this server to upload videos and services such as Vimeo will have greater bandwith for playback. Vimeo permits a more professional feel and more control. Keep in mind that some browsers do not permit a video to automatically start playing when it is loaded. While some browsers like Chrome permit autoplay, they will mute autoplay videos. You will have to depend on the user clicking play or unmuting. The DPTE can keeps track of when the person hits the play button on the video and will also record if the video play to the complete end. Here is a sample of the code you would paste from Vimeo to your campaign data Google Sheet.

<div style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1164202245?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" title="SampleVideo"></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>

Can I Create Experimental Conditions on the Campaign Board?

Kind of: For example, if you have two conditions in the DPTE, surveys, and/or you want two different headings/subheadings, you would need to create two separe projects. This will give you two URLs to share with participants. Then you can randomly assign who gets which URL on your end. In a future update, we hope to be able to incorporate that into the dashboard.

Site Updates and Maintenance

While we trying to keep the site functional, we do not monitor the site functionality on a regular basis. By using the site, the user is responsible for checking to make sure the program is functional and collecting data as anticipate.

From time to time, we may need to take the site down for maintenance. You will be notified via the email address associated with your account when this happens.