Metadata-Version: 1.0
Name: PsiTurk
Version: 1.0a2
Summary: A web framework for dynamic behavioral experiments
Home-page: http://github.com/NYUCCL/psiturk
Author: NYU Computation and Cognition Lab
Author-email: http://nyuccl.org
License: UNKNOWN
Description: 
        What is this?
        ============
        
        PsiTurk is an open platform for conducting custom behvioral experiments on
        Amazon's Mechanical Turk. 
        
        It is intended to provide most of the backend machinery necessary to run your
        experiment. It uses AMT's _External Question_ HIT type, meaning that you can
        collect data using any website. As long as you can turn your experiment into a
        website, you can run it with PsiTurk!
        
        You can direct questions to our [Q&A Google group](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/psiturk).
        
        Install
        =======
        
        **Mac-specific instructions** Mac users will need to install a C compiler via
        XCode; to do so, install XCode from the App store. Once you have downloaded it,
        install the command line tools from the preferences as instructed
        [here](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9353468/62179).
        
        The easiest way to install PsiTurk is via `pip`. If you don't already have `pip`, you
        can install it by typing the folloiwng in a terminal:
        
            cd /tmp  # Just to put us in a directory that will be cleaned up periodically
            curl -O https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
            python get-pip.py  # If you get a permissions error, try typing sudo python get-pip.py
        
        Once `pip` is installed, type into a terminal:
        
            pip install git+git://github.com/NYUCCL/psiTurk.git@dev
        
        
        Quick Start
        ===========
        
        Once PsiTurk is installed, you'll need to set up your environment.
        
        1. Sign up for an AWS account, available [here](http://aws.amazon.com/).
        2. Sign up for a Mechanical Turk requester account, available
           [here](https://requester.mturk.com/).
        3. In a terminal, install psiturk by typing `pip install
           git+git://github.com/NYUCCL/psiTurk.git@dev`.
        3. To use our example experiment, make a new directory and issue the command
           `psiturk-setup-example`.
        5. Start the dashboard by typing `psiturk`. The dashboard should pop up in a browser window.
        6. To launch the experiment server, click the "on" button next to the word
           "server" in the upper-right-hand corner.
        
        *Note*: If you are just testing the server without posting your HIT to Amazon,
        you can see the experiment at the following link:
        http://localhost:22362/mturk?assignmentId=debug&hitId=debug&workerId=debug
        
        
        Experiment design
        =================
        
        We have provided an example stroop experiment that could form the basis of your
        own experiment. The task logic is programmed in Javascript, which will run in
        your participant's browser. Most of the code can be found in
        `static/js/task.js`.  It works by dynamically changing the html document served
        to participants in `templates/exp.html` and communicating with the server code
        which can be found in `psiturk/psiturk.py`. PsiTurk assigns a condition and
        counterbalance to each participant. PsiTurk actively manages the condition and
        counterbalance subjects are assigned to, helping you fill them in evenly. These
        are fed into JavaScript via code in `static/js/psiturk.js`. You can tell
        PsiTurk how many conditions and counterbalance identities there are in the
        dashboard's "Expt Info" tab.
        
        Deployment
        ==========
        
        Configuration
        ------------
        To make your experiment available on the internet, you will need to make the
        following changes to the configuration file:
        
            host: 0.0.0.0
            question_url: http://yoururl:yourport/mturk
        
        replacing `yoururl` with the url to your surver, and `yourport` with the port
        you have configured in `config.txt` (by default, 22362).
        
        Database
        --------
        
        We recommend using a deployment-robust database solution such as
        [MySQL](http://www.mysql.org) or [PostgreSQL](http://www.postgresql.org).
        SQLite does not allow concurrent access to the database, so if the locks work
        properly, simultaneous access (say, from multiple users submitting their data
        at the same time) could destabilize your database. In the worst (unlikely)
        scenario, the database could become corrupted, resulting in data loss.
        
        Instructions for setting up a MySQL server on a Mac can be found 
        [in the wiki](https://github.com/NYUCCL/psiTurk/wiki/Macintosh-Configuration).
        Other platforms, check out instructions at
        [mysql.org](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en//installing.html).
        
        FAQ
        ---
        
         * **I can't seem to get pip working**.  If you are having trouble setting up
           Python, we suggest installing the [Enthought Python
           Distribution](https://www.enthought.com/products/epd/), which is licensed
           for free to academics [at this
           link](https://www.enthought.com/products/canopy/academic/). It provides a
           kitchen-sink-included version of Python which includes `pip`.
        
        Copyright
        =========
        You are welcome to use this code for personal or academic uses. If you fork,
        please cite the authors (Todd Gureckis and John McDonnell).
        
        
        
        
Platform: UNKNOWN
