StudyCrafter is a free playful platform where users can create, play, and share research projects to advance our understanding of human behavior together. It is intended for teaching research and conducting the next generation of social and behavioral science research – and to engage the public at large with scientific research across the world. It takes a playful approach to science: it inspires users to find creative ways to explore human behavior and enables them to create gamefied projects to engage their participants.

Why Gamify Research?

Games have three qualities to help advance scientific research:

Observe

Collect detailed behavioral data automatically and unobtrusively.
This eases data collection. It also encourages natural responses.

Situate

Put participants in various contexts, including situations that are difficult
to observe in reality. This makes
behavior more realistic. It also makes
data collection possible.

Engage

Motivate participants to complete
tasks voluntarily and with effort.
Also, they can play any time
and anywhere, thereby
broadening participation.

Key Features

  • User friendly editor for creating gamefied research projects.
  • Remix existing projects with a click of a button.
  • Collect detailed data automatically and anonymously.
  • Share and retrieve data from projects.
  • Engage the community to play and discuss work and results.

Project Types

Games have three qualities to help advance scientific research:

Observational Study

Observe behavior in a particular
situation.

Experiment

Randomly assign participants
to particular conditions.

Game

Observe player behavior
in your game.

Survey

Collect closed responses.

Interview

Collect open responses.

Bot Training

Train bots based on human behavior.

Ethics and Code of Conduct

When conducting research with human participants it is essential that ethical standards
are applied. Because StudyCrafter is an open online community it is also essential
that users treat each other with mutual respect. By participating, users agree to our terms of use, privacy policy, community guidelines,
and respect the intellectual property of others. Participation is voluntary at all times
and consent to contribute your data is requested at the end of each project.

All data collection is anonymous.

Our Research

The StudyCrafter Team and collaborators are researching how people use and learn
with StudyCrafter. We also evaluate how its use helps to advance our understanding
of human behavior. Based on our research, we make changes to the platform
and develop guidelines and best practices – for StudyCrafter and for the social
and behavioral sciences at large. See our Research page for more information.

Credits

The platform is developed and maintained by the Northeastern Game Studio
at Northeastern University, and has received financial support from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation.
See the credits for more information about the team behind StudyCrafter.