Getting Started: A Tour Around mTurk

Here’s a quick primer on how to get started working on mTurk. I will go into details of each of the sections in future blog posts.

Don’t forget to read the official mTurk FAQ on getting started.

Get an Account

Start at the mTurk Introduction page. To work on mTurk, you will need to get an mTurk account. If you already have an account at Amazon.com (i.e. if you’ve purchased products from the US-based Amazon) you can just sign on to mTurk using your existing email address and password. If you don’t already have an Amazon.com account, you will be prompted to create one. You will be prompted to sign in or create an account if you click on the Sign In in the upper right hand corner, if you try to click on Your Account, or if you try to accept a HIT.

Let’s go on a quick tour:

Next, you should explore mTurk. There are three tabs at the top of all mTurk pages: Your Account, HITs, and Qualifications.

Your Account

Under the Your Account tab, you can keep track of your HITs. The Dashboard is the homepage for your stats: summaries of how many HITs you’ve done, cash earned, reject rates, etc. The Status page gives you 45 days of details of your HITs. The Account Settings is the technical details page. It has your account balance and links to the detailed transactions (the actual money transfers from the Requester’s accounts to your own). This is also where you transfer your earned money out of mTurk.

HITs

The HITs tab is where you find HITs to work on. You can look at All HITs available on mTurk, or just the HITs you are qualified to do (HITs Available To You). In addition, if you have any open HITs (you’ve accepted them, but haven’t submitted or returned them), you can find those open HITs on the HITs Assigned To You page.

Qualifications

The Qualifications tab lets you manage and explore qualifications on mTurk. The Qualifications Assigned To You pages gives you a list of all Qualifications that you have earned or have been assigned. Everyone has the HIT abandonment rate (%), HIT approval rate (%), HIT rejection rate (%), HIT submission rate (%), HIT return rate (%), and Location Qualifications. The All Qualifications page lets you browse through a list of all Qualifications you can request or take a test to receive. Finally the Pending Qualifications page shows you the Qualification tests you have taken, but have yet to be graded by the Requester.

Find a HIT

In future posts, I’ll go into the details of how to navigate each of the pages mentioned above. However, I’m sure you’re itching to find a HIT to try!

Go back to the HITs tab, and click on HITs Available To You. You’ll see a list of all the groups of HITs you are qualified for on mTurk. On the upper left, you can sort the HITs in various ways. When you click on the title of the HIT group, the box will expand to show you the description of the HIT, keywords and qualifications. When you click on the “View a HIT in this group”, you are taken to a preview page for the HIT. Read the description, look over the HIT and decide if it’s something you’d like to try. If so, do the HIT! Note that there is a timer in the upper left corner of the HIT page that lets you know how long you’ve been working on the HIT and the total Alloted Time.

Get Approved, Get Paid

Getting your HITs approved by the Requester is one of the biggest variables on mTurk. Some Requesters have a script that verifies your work, and approves or rejects your HIT accordingly. (The Amazon Requester Inc. “Are These Items Different” are this way.) Some Requesters will pay you automatically after a certain number of days. (Amazon Unspun HITs pay automatically after 5-6 days.) And some Requesters have to approve or reject your HIT by hand. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to 2 weeks for the vast majority of HITs to be evaluated and paid, so be patient. Even if a Requester never gets around to evaluating your HIT, Amazon has a policy to auto-approve your hit after 30 days.

Once your HIT is approved, you see the value in the Total Earnings on your Dashboard increase. This amount is not the amount of cash you can transfer out to your bank or Amazon.com balance. Your current balance is quoted on the Account Settings page. There is a delay from the HIT being approved (value on the Dashboard) and the money transfering from the Requester's account to your own. You can see details of these transfers through the View your account balance and transaction history link on the Account Settings page.

Transfer money

Now that your HIT has been approved, you’ve gotten paid, I bet you are eager to get your hands on your earnings! You have several options here, mostly depending on where you are in the world.

If you are in the US, you can choose to either transfer your earnings to a US-based bank account or you can transfer your money to your Amazon.com balance. As of March 18, your earnings are stored in the Amazon Payments system. You can use your earnings to pay for goods wherever Amazon Payments are accepted. In order to transfer your money to your bank account, you will need your account number and routing number from your bank. Both of these options are available from the Account Settings page.

If you are in India, you can have your earnings sent you by check, made out in Rupees. Details of how to do this can be found on the FAQ.

For the rest of the world, things are much more difficult. Unless you have a US-based bank account, your only option is to have your earnings transferred to your Amazon.com balance, then find Sellers on Amazon who will ship products to your country. What’s important here, is that you can NOT transfer your earnings to Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de, etc. Nor can international Turkers use the Amazon Payments system. The independent Turker Nation forum has a nice thread of Sellers who will ship internationally. Make sure to go to the last page to see the most recent update.

And that’s it for our quick tour! You will learn so much more by getting your hands dirty trying HITs and exploring the mTurk page.

Don’t forget to ready my summary on Pitfalls!