Wikipedia:Research recruitment/Wikipedian checklist

This document is intended to help Wikipedians review proposals for recruiting participants for scholarly research. Your intuiting is invaluable in determining when a proposal is ready. If you think that a project is adequately documented, not likely to cause a disruption and likely to be successful at producing something valuable, then the review should be closed. The checklist below is intended to help guide your questions and information requests.

The checklist

Noting precedent

1. Has the researcher reviewed the literature on Wikipedia, and listed similar studies to the one proposed or otherwise stated that there is no precedent? (check wikipapers)

Documenting procedure

1. Has the researcher thoroughly explained the goals of the research?
2. Has the researcher verified their identity and provided credentials?
3. What is the researcher's plan for publishing the results of the research?

Research participant protection

1. Has the researcher explained how data will be stored/kept private?
   • Sometimes researchers will ask Wikipedians for information they'd like to be kept private. A researcher should have a plan for securely storing such information and properly anonymizing their results.
2. Will the researcher provide a consent form for potential participants to review/sign?
   • Note that this is not necessary for many studies where participants will not risk harm. Do you accept the researcher's reason for not having one?
   • For researchers affiliated with a university or research institution, an excellent rationale for not having an informed consent document is the provision of a document proving that their research proposal has been reviewed by their organization's ethics committee, and that committee determined that an informed consent document is not necessary.
3. Will the recruitment or any other part of the research plan unnecessarily disrupt editors?
   • Is there a better way to do recruitment that will still allow the researcher to continue?
4. Would performing the recruitment or research breach any policies or guidelines of Wikipedia?
5. Has the researcher Canvassed appropriately for participation in this discussion?

Open access policy

1. • Can the results be made freely available to the community?
   • Can the data be published openly for re-use?