Instructions for obtaining access to the participant pool for your honors thesis research project
1. Obtain IRB approval for your study.
2. Email researchcmc@gmail.com and request a "Researcher Account" for the Sona Systems website.
Your email should include the following:
a. Your name as indicated on your approved IRB protocol
b. Name of the PI (faculty advisor on the IRB) for your study
c. IRB submission and approval letter
d. IRB expiration date (one year from approval date)
e. Title of the experiment for Sona Systems
f. Duration of the study experiment (in minutes) and sample size requested (not guaranteed)
g. Room location if available (see section 3c below)
h. An electronic copy of your informed consent form (Please save the name of your consent form as the title of your experiment for Sona Systems and separate each word with an underscore. Example: title_of_experiment.docx. Your consent form may need to be uploaded to the informed consent page on this site.)
3. While waiting for a researcher account:
a. Make sure you are familiar with the participation due dates
b. Familiarize yourself with the researcher information for using Sona Systems
c. Reserve a room for conducting the experiment (if you need to)
4. Once your Research Account is approved, you and your advisor (PI) can together "Add a new study" using his or her PI account on Sona Systems. You will be a researcher under your advisor.
a. Choose the type of study you are creating (online or standard in-person)
b. Enter the study information. Remember, it's 0.5 credits for 30 minutes and 1 credit for one hour.
c. In the IRB approval code section, enter the CMC IRB Protocol # from your IRB approval.
d. In the advanced settings section, select any prescreen option that was outlined in your IRB proposal.
e. If you are prepared to begin data collection, make sure to click Yes next to "Active Study?"
f. Press "Add this study" at the bottom of the page when you have entered all the necessary information.
g. Have the PI (your advisor) click the "Send a Request" link next to the Study Status in the Study Information box. Normally they would need to include the name of the study and email a copy of the IRB approval and consent form, but because you (should have) already done that by this point, your advisor can leave the leave the box blank and simply "Send Request." This is an important step -- the research coordinator will NOT know your study is ready for approval without this approval request!
h. Please allow several days for the approval process. It may take less time, but there is no guarantee.
5. After your study is approved, use your Researcher Account to "Add timeslots" to your study.
a. Make very sure you enter AM/PM appropriately
b. Indicate the number of participants you want per timeslot
c. Select the room location or type this into the entry box
d. Select yourself as the researcher if this was not already set up
e. If you are using SurveyMonkey, SurveyGizmo, or Qualtrics, please read SurveyMonkey with Sona Systems or SurveyGizmo with Sona Systems or Qualtrics with SonaSystems
6. After testing participants, assign credits regularly. Credit can only be awarded to those students who have signed up online. You must assign all credits, penalties, or cancellations by 5:00 pm on the last day of classes. Taking care of this earlier would be appreciated.
Please note: Any participants acquired prior to your approval date should understand that participation was for voluntary purposes. Only those who have signed up for your experiment through Sona Systems can be awarded credit for participating. Please understand that using Sona-Systems will aid data collection, but will not guarantee collection of all data that you might need for your project. We strongly suggest using multiple data-collection methods (e.g., personal recruiting, Facebook or other social-networking sites, etc.).