Research participants' guide to using Sona (slide show) | Log in to Sona
Instructors get your class listed | Current size of the participant pool
Prior to the Start of the Semester
Set the Study-Scheduling Deadline
Make sure the study-scheduling deadline is set to be the Sunday prior to the start of the last week of classes. Select Set Up and then System Settings. Select the appropriate date in the Study Scheduling Deadline field.
Add New Faculty Members and Graduate Students to the System
For psychology, you may ask Paula Watson for a list of the new faculty-members' and new graduate-students' names and BGSU email addresses. The most straightforward was to register them into the system is one-at-a-time:
At https://bgsu.sona-systems.com/ , log into the Sona system: Select BGSU ID Log In and enter your BGSU credentials, then select Administrator.
Select User Management and View and Edit Users.
To add a faculty member or graduate student, select New Instructor. Enter the person's First Name, Last Name, SSO ID, and Email Address. Note that the email address is the person's full BGSU email address, and the SSO ID is identical to the person's full email address. Thus, you'll be entering the email address twice. Don't do anything with the other information fields, but do select Save Changes. Next, you need to 'add roles' to the user you just registered. Hopefully, you see a field labelled "Search Users: Name, User ID, or email." Enter the email address, and select the user that is returned by the system. Select Change Roles, then Add Role of Researcher and Participant. Select Save Changes. When the user logs in, that user will now have the option to log in as an instructor (to access students' Sona credit reports), as a researcher (to list and manage study-recruitment through the Sona system), or as a participant (just to get an idea of what prospective participants see when they log in).
Familiarize Yourself with How You Can Send Mass Emails to Sona Users.
To send a mass email message, select Tasks, Mass Email and Announcements. Select the type of user you would like to email (e.g., User Type: Instructors). Write your message in the Message field, select Preview, and the Proceed (or Start Over if you want to edit the message before sending it).
Inform Researchers about the Relevant Deadlines.
The deadlines are listed at: https://sites.google.com/view/complexcognitionlab-bgsu/sona-help Going forward, this information will need to be moved to a different location that is under the control of the new Sona administrator.
Ask the Instructors to Have their Classes be Sona-Participating Classes for the Semester
There is a web form that instructors can fill-out to indicate their class's participation for the upcoming semester. You should receive an email notification for each person who fills out that form. Going forward, this form will need to be redone by the new Sona administrator (perhaps as a Qualtrics survey) .
You may use Sona's mass emailing feature to ask instructors to fill-out the form.
If you prefer to just have instructors email you instead, that's fine too. In that case, use the mass emailer to ask instructors to let you know the title and section number(s) of the participating class(es), the instructor's name, and the teaching assistant's name (if there is a teaching assistant).
Inform Instructors about What to Tell Their Students.
Ask instructors to inform students that students should wait until the second week of classes (to give the administrator enough time to make sure the system is completely ready,) and then go to https://bgsu.sona-systems.com/
Ask instructors to tell the students about the participation deadlines. They're listed at: https://sites.google.com/view/complexcognitionlab-bgsu/sona-help Again, going forward, this information will need to be moved to a different location that is under the control of the new Sona administrator.
The instructor may refer students to a slide slide presentation containing step-by-step instructions: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HgG0iwnVn_tS9bEPahQ_rnnoykf_GrcQjoO6xMDR8P0/edit?usp=sharing Going forward, The current Sona Admistrator will be able to transfor this slide-show presentation to the new Sona Administrator's Google account, or it can be converted to Powerpoint and emailed to the new Sona administrator.
For Sona-Participating Classes, Persuade the Instructors to Incentivize The Students to Actually Participate
Instructors may agree to have their students participate. That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll give their students enough of an incentive to participate. For example, if students get a small amount of extra credit for participating and if the course grading is rather liberal, few students will participate at all. In principle, an instructor could require X number of Sona hours from each student, while allowing students to fulfill some or all of their Sona hours via a Sona-scheduled activity that isn't research (thus making research participation completely voluntary). Instructors have generally been unwilling to do this. Overall, the extent of Sona participation will depend on you being able to persuade instructors to find ways to effectively and ethically persuade their students.
It may be that if BGSU Sona is to continue it will need to employ other means of soliciting participation.
Setup the List of the Semester's Sona-Participating Class Sections.
Probably, the most straightforward and ultimately the most efficient (though still tedious) process is to add each class section one-at-a-time. Select Setup, Course Listings, and Add New Course. At this point, your goal is to: enter a Course Name, leave credits required at 0.0, select the Instructor 1 (the instructor of record), select the Instructor 2 (the teaching assistant, if there is one), and uncheck the selectable box (so that participants can't yet see the class in the list).
The Course Name needs to contain enough information so that participants know what course(s) to select when assigning earned Sona credits to their course or courses. However, there is a tight limit on the number of allowed characters. Therefore it's suggested that you use the following format for each course name: PSYC1010. Recit: 1003. Jones (TA: Smith)
This indicates that the course is Psyc 1010, the recitation section is 1003, the instructor is Jones, and the teaching assistant is Smith. (Note that when there are multiple recitation sections of a class, you should list the recitation sections in Sona, not the lecture sessions). It's essential, at this point to Save Changes before attempting to add another course or to do do anything else.
After all of the course listings have been set up, put a checkmark in the Selectable box for each course, and Save Changes.
Requests that You May Receive at Any Time
Registering Researchers' Renewed Projects
Researchers can setup their recruiting for a new study in Sona, without the Sona administrator's help or permission. However, if/when a research wants to re-activate an expired study, you'll need to manually change the studies expiration date to some appropriate date in the future--usually the expiration date for the Institutional Review Board approval. You do not need to investigate or independently confirm that the new IRB-expiration is that data the researcher is claiming (IRB compliance is between the research and the IRB). To extend an expiration date in Sona: Select Studies, View Studies, All. Select the relevant study, select Study Menu, and then Change Study Information. There, you can enter the date of the new IRB Approval Expiration, and change Approved? to "yes."
Adding the Researcher Role to Particular Undergraduate Students
Sometimes a researcher will contact you to request that particular undergraduates be able to log into Sona as researchers. This is allowed. You can do this by using the Changes Roles / Add Role function, already described in the discussion of adding new users (above).
Paying the Invoice to Renew Sona
Actually, the invoice usually arrives (by email) in November or December. You should discuss it with the Psyc Department Chair, and with Sue Wax. Sue is the person who actually pays it.
During The Semester
Reminder about Prompt Credit-Granting
You need to remind researchers that if they use the Sona system, they must grant credit within in a few days or within a week of the participant completing the research task (researchers may not wait until near the end of the semester to grant credit that has been earned much earlier in the semester).
Reminder to Instructors about Checking Student Credit Reports
You need to remind instructors that they should log in to Sona, as instructors, to monitor students' accumulation of Sona credits and to confirm that they (the instructors) know how to interpret the credit reports.
Near the End of the Semester
Reminder about Deadlines
You need to remind participants, researchers, and instructors about the relevant deadlines.
Once the Semester has Ended
Back-up the Sona Credit Activity
Select:
Tasks
System Maintenance and Data Management
Data Export
Credits Course Credit History Reports
Analysis Format
Output Format: CSV Export (Comma-Separated Format)
Generate Report
Reset the Sona System
Select:
Tasks
System Maintenance and Data Management
Advanced End-of-Semester Maintenance
Select Preset: Preset #1
Select "Continue" each time the "Continue" option is presented.
Remove the Courses
Select Setup and then Course Listings.
Delete each course.
(Alternatively, make each course un-selectable by removing its "selectable" checkmark.)
Reset the Study-Scheduling Deadline
Make sure the study-scheduling deadline for the next semester is set to be the Sunday prior to the start of the last week of classes. Select Set Up and then System Settings. Select the appropriate date in the Study Scheduling Deadline field.