August saw the official launch of the Harvard Digital Lab for the Social Sciences (DLABSS).
The Harvard Digital Lab for the Social Sciences, a new program at IQSS headed by faculty affiliate Ryan Enos, is an online human behavior laboratory for social scientists available to all Harvard social scientists. At DLABSS, anybody in the world can be part of Harvard research from their personal computer.
Human subjects research is increasingly turning to the online world. Online research allows for ease in the acquisition of subjects and the building of research instruments, such as experiments and surveys. While online research is often thought of as more efficient than traditional laboratory research, traditional laboratory research has the advantage of maintaining a robust, reusable subject pool that can be shared by multiple researchers. By building a permanent online laboratory, DLABSS can replicate the success of these more narrow research programs in attracting subjects while, like a traditional laboratory, it can serve multiple, diverse researchers. Research can be deployed and subjects acquired rapidly.
Any researcher at Harvard can request to put a study on the lab website, and DLABSS will acquire human subjects at no charge to the researcher.
For more information, contact the Lab Manager, Louis Cid (manager@dlabss.harvard.edu) or Lab Director, Ryan Enos (renos@gov.harvard.edu).
