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Wizard Graphical

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Thomas J. Leeper edited this page Nov 17, 2015 · 8 revisions

Note: The Graphical User Interface is currently being refactored into a separate R package called MTurkRGUI.

MTurkR includes a lightweight graphical user interface to accomplish some of the tasks associated with managing HITs. Like the [simple, text-based wizard](Wizard Text Based), this tool is meant to help new users use Amazon Mechanical Turk at a more advanced level than what is available in the online Requester User Interface without the need for any command-line programming. Unlike the simple wizard, however, this tool is much more sophisticated and provides support for a number of additional operations.

Note: This wizard was created largely as an experiment in programming tcl/tk by the package author, and therefore does not have all of the package's features or necessarily work that well and it is quite ugly. Pull requests welcome!

Opening the Wizard

To open the wizard, simply open R and do the following:

library("MTurkRGUI")
wizard()

A small graphical window will open with several menus. The contents and functionality of those menus are described in the following sections.

Requester Actions

The first menu "Requester Actions" includes some basic tools for using the wizard and for connecting to your MTurk requester account. Here's what those options look like:

"Requester Actions" menu

The menu options are as follows:

  1. Enter RequesterAPI Credentials: This option opens a dialog that allows you to enter your Amazon Web Services Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. You need to enter these credentials to be able to perform any operation with MTurkR. Details about how to setup the credentials can be found here.

  2. Use Sandbox?: This option is simply a checkbox that controls whether the wizard performs operations on the MTurk live server (where workers will be able to complete HITs) or on the "sandbox" server (which can be used for testing out MTurk functionality before going to the live server).

  3. Balance: A submenu that allows you to check the balance of funds in your requester account, or additionally check whether those funds are sufficient for a conducting a specific HIT. In the latter case, you will be prompted by a menu to enter some details about the HIT you plan to launch. From that information, the wizard will determine the cost of the HIT and indicate whether your account has sufficient funds.

  4. Requester UI Pages: This submenu has quick links to some of the main pages on the MTurk website (i.e., the Requester User Interface), provided as a convenience.

  5. Requester Reports: This submenu allows you to obtain some simple statistical reports about your usage of MTurk over a specified period of time.

  6. Load MTurk Log Entries: This option will load (from a local file) your recent MTurk API requests.

  7. Quit: Exit the wizard.

HITs

The HITs menu allows you to perform some operations related to creating and managing HITs. The menu contains the following options:

"HITs" menu

  1. Register HITType: This option opens a dialog for registering a HITType, which controls how any given HIT with that HITType is displayed to workers. This includes its title, description, keywords, QualificationRequirements, reward, etc.

  2. Create HIT: This option opens a dialog that will allow you to create a HIT using a specified HITTypeId.

  3. Change HITType of HIT: This option opens a dialog that will allow you to change the HITType of a specified HIT. If, for example, you need to change the displayed characteristics of the HIT or the reward amount, this allows you to change those features without creating a new HIT.

  4. View HIT: This option will retrieve specified details about a HIT by its HITId.

  5. Check HIT Status: This option will retrieve the number of completed and pending assignments for a HIT or group of HITs.

  6. Change HIT Review Status: This option is probably not useful to most users.

  7. View ReviewResults for HIT: This option will open a menu for retrieve ReviewPolicy results for a HIT. Only for advanced users.

  8. Add Assignments to HIT: This option will open a dialog that will allow you to add assignments to a given HIT.

  9. Add Time to HIT: This option will open a dialog that allows you to extend the expiration time of a HIT or to reactive an already expired HIT.

  10. Expire HIT: This option will open a dialog that allows you to expire a HIT early, thus making it unavailable to new workers. Note: Workers who have already accepted assignments for the HIT will still be able to complete them.

  11. Dispose HIT: This option deletes a HIT and all associated worker and assignment data from MTurk. This should only be used if the data are no longer needed.

Assignments

The Assignments menu allows you to perform some operations related to retrieving, approving, and rejecting assignments completed by workers. The menu contains the following options:

"Assignments" menu

  1. Get Assignment(s): This option cascades a submenu providing options to retrieve assignments individually (by their AssignmentId), or in groups (by HITId, HITTypeId, or Annotation/Batch).

  2. Get ReviewResults for HIT: If your HIT includes a ReviewPolicy, this option will allow you to retrieve the results of that ReviewPolicy.

  3. Approve Assignment: This option opens a dialog that will allow you to approve a specific assignment (using its AssignmentId) or approve all assignments for a HIT.

  4. Reject Assignment: This option opens a dialog that will allow you to reject an assignment using its AssignmentId.

  5. Approve/Reject Wizard: This option opens an interactive dialog that will allow you to retrieve assignments for a specified HIT (or group if HITs by their HITTypeId) and then view, approve, and reject those assignments one-by-one in an interactive fashion.

Workers

The Workers menu allows you to perform some operations related to contacting and managing workers. The menu contains the following options:

"Workers" menu

  1. Contact...: This submenu allows you to contact one or more workers via email. You need to have the MTurk WorkerId for each worker and the worker must have completed an assignment for you in the past for the message to be sent.

  2. Grant Bonus(es): This option will open a dialog that will allow you to grant a bonus to one or more workers. You must have the WorkerId and the AssignmentId for an assignment each worker has completed in order to pay the bonus.

  3. Block Worker(s): This option will open a dialog that will allow you to block a worker, preventing them from completing any future HITs for you (unless you unblock them in the future). You will have the option to supply a reason for the block. Note: HITs are still visible to workers, they simply will not be able to complete them.

  4. Unblock Worker(s): This option will open a dialog that will allow you to unblock a worker.

  5. Get Blocked Workers: This option will retrieve the list of workers you have blocked and any reason supplied for that block.

  6. Worker Statistics: This option will allow you to retrieve some statistics about the assignments as worker has submitted to you in the past.

Qualifications

The Qualifications menu allows you to perform some operations related to creating and managing worker Qualifications. The menu contains the following options:

"Qualifications" menu

  1. Create QualificationType: This option opens a dialog that will allow you to create a new QualificationType and make it available to workers. Use the Update Worker Score(s) option to assign Qualification scores to specific workers.

  2. Update a QualificationType: This option opens a dialog that will allow you to update characteristics of a QualificationType, such as its title or description.

  3. View a QualificationType: This option opens a dialog for retrieving details about a QualificationType.

  4. Dispose a QualificationType: This option opens a dialog that will allow you to dispose of a QualificationType and all associated worker qualification scores.

  5. Get Qualification Requests: Once a QualificationType is registered on MTurk, workers have the ability to request it. This option opens an interactive dialog that will allow you to view requests from workers for a specific QualificationType and further allow you to grant or reject those requests. See the Qualification Requests page for details on the use of this tool.

  6. Assign Qualification to Worker(s): This option allows you to assign a Qualification score to one or more workers.

  7. Get Worker Score(s): This option will open a dialog that will allow you to retrieve workers' scores for a specified QualificationType.

  8. Update Worker Score(s): This option opens a dialog that will allow you to assign specific Qualification scores to specific workers using their WorkerId.

  9. Get Worker(s) By Qualification: This option will open a dialog that will allow you to retrieve all workers with a specified Qualification.

  10. List Built-In QualificationTypes: This option will print the list of built-in QualificationTypes that exist as part of the MTurk system.

Help

The Help menu provides some links to MTurk documentation that may be helpful for using MTurk in general and MTurkR specifically. The menu contains the following options:

"Help" menu

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