  Recruiting participants for software engineering research has been a primary
concern of the human factors community. This is particularly true for
quantitative investigations that require a minimum sample size not to be
statistically underpowered. Traditional data collection techniques, such as
mailing lists, are highly doubtful due to self-selection biases. The
introduction of crowdsourcing platforms allows researchers to select informants
with the exact requirements foreseen by the study design, gather data in a
concise time frame, compensate their work with fair hourly pay, and most
importantly, have a high degree of control over the entire data collection
process. This experience report discusses our experience conducting sample
studies using Prolific, an academic crowdsourcing platform. Topics discussed
are the type of studies, selection processes, and power computation.
