Accepted for/Published in: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
Date Submitted: Jan 6, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 6, 2025 - Mar 3, 2025
Date Accepted: Apr 10, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Imposters, Bots, and Other Threats to Data Integrity in Online Research: A Scoping Review of the Literature and Recommendations for Best Practices
ABSTRACT
Background:
Threats to data integrity have always existed in online human subjects research, but it appears these threats have become more common and more advanced in recent years. Researchers have proposed various techniques to address bots, fraudulent participants, repeat participants, and satisficers, yet no review of this literature has been conducted.
Objective:
To synthesize and evaluate the recent research published on methods for addressing threats to data integrity in online research.
Methods:
We conducted a comprehensive review of the literature addressing threats to data integrity in online research. Ninety articles were ultimately reviewed and coded.
Results:
Findings revealed that techniques to authenticate personal information (e.g., videoconferencing, mailing incentives to a physical address) were discussed by 47% of the articles and appear to be very effective at deterring or identifying fraudulent participants. Yet such techniques also come with ethical considerations, including participant burden and increased threats to privacy. Other techniques, such as reCAPTCHA scores and checking IP addresses, although very common, were also deemed by several researchers as no longer sufficient protections against advanced threats to data integrity.
Conclusions:
Overall, this review demonstrates the importance of shifting online research protocols as bots and fraudulent participants become more sophisticated.
Citation
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Copyright
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