Recruitment Options

CCR Facebook Page

To recruit from the outside community, researchers can use the CCR Facebook page. Although Facebook Ads and boosted posts are often the most successful, unpaid posts to the page can generate some responses. Be sure to define your audience well when boosting posts, as you don't want to waste money by targeting the wrong people.

You can access this page through Kristina, our lab manager, or Dr. Cummins.

SONA Participant Pool

Purpose

The College of Media and Communication CoMC Pool has two main purposes:

• To provide undergraduate students in CoMC courses, as well as students in other participating units on campus (i.e., the Department of Agricultural Education and Communications; College of Human Sciences), the opportunity to learn about research conducted in the social sciences, to gain insights into the variety of problems that can be studied, and how research is conducted. Student participants earn course credit for their participation. Student participation is voluntary and there are other, non-research ways, involving comparable time and effort, in which the students can earn these credits, and which are also designed to expose students to social science research practices and procedures.
• To provide faculty and student researchers within the CoMC Pool access to research participants. Access to such a pool enables researchers to complete more research with lessened participant recruitment effort and to standardize recruitment and compensation. In fulfillment of these purposes, the procedures for the Pool are designed to ensure fair and ethical recruitment of research participants.

Credit by Course and Alternative Credit Options

The site allows students to see approved research projects offered within the pool of researchers (i.e., CoMC and the Department of Agricultural Education and Communications; College of Human Sciences) and sign up to participate in studies at times that are convenient to them. Instructors from participating academic units may opt to include their courses in the pool (i.e., participation is not mandatory), and instructors are contacted before the start of each semester to invite participation/inclusion of their courses in the pool. Instructors who elect to include their courses within the CoMC Pool may provide extra course credit for study participation not to exceed 10% of the course grade or require mandatory completion of a set number of hours. The exact amount of extra credit earned for study participation is dependent upon individual instructor and included in course syllabi at the start of the semester.

To earn study credits, students can choose between participating in research studies or an alternate experience. Moreover, students may blend research experiences and the alternate experience in any combination to achieve credits. Courses within which research participation can be used change from semester to semester based on course offerings and instructor participation. The CoMC Pool coordinator will provide a list of classes for which credit can be applied to the Human Research Protection Program office upon request at any point during any semester of the Pool’s use.

The alternate experience consists of finding and reading discipline-relevant academic journal articles and writing 1-2 page papers summarizing the article, research questions and methods, and discussing how it fits with what the student is learning in communication-related classes or their personal communication experiences. Each paper earns 1 credit. These journal articles should be from peer-reviewed journals in a field relevant to the student’s class. Additionally, .25 or .5 credits may be awarded for similar research summaries based on industry research found in trade publications. These alternate experiences are designed to take approximately the same amount of time and effort as participating in research studies. Information on earning credit through alternative experiences is provided to students upon request, and language noting the ability to pursue alternative credit is included in every study announcement within the Pool.

Any credit awarded must be completed by the end of the individual study day as listed in the TTU academic calendar for each academic term.

The Web-based System

The pool uses a web-based system to recruit, sign-up, and log research credit to research participants. The system is under the supervision of the Pool coordinator, whoever fills the role of Associate Dean for Research within the College of Media and Communication as well as lab manager of the Center for Communication Research, a full-time staff position.

Access to the system is limited in the following ways to protect student confidentiality:

1. Participating students will have access only to their own research participation and record information about studies that have slots available for sign-up.
2. Instructors with courses listed in the CoMC Pool will have access to student research participation credit records so that instructors can include participation credit in grade calculations. However, to preserve participant confidentiality, instructors with courses include in the pool are not told specifically which studies students participated in to earn credit.
3. Researchers will have access to sign-up data for their own studies only.
4. Studies for which participation happens at one-point in time and Sona can link to an external program (i.e., Qualtrics) to grant credit within the CoMC Pool automatically, researchers cannot see the names of student participants per privacy settings in Sona.

To further ensure student confidentiality, all researchers are instructed to delete inactive studies in accordance with the duration of their IRB approval.

How Researchers Request Access to the Pool

Note: Two types of non-participant accounts are available in the CoMC Pool: A researcher-level account and an instructor-level account. Researchers, including faculty and students of participating units, who are also instructors have two separate accounts (each with separate log on credentials). Only researcher-level account holders would have access to this online Sona Study Request form. All research-level account holders must be manually added to the system by the CoMC Pool Director or lab manager (i.e., researchers cannot self-enroll in the system).

Researchers with access to the pool will complete the Sona Study Request form (see Appendix A). This form is completed online through the Sona System. The form requires researchers to provide their IRB approved protocol number.

Studies are not activated or made visible to student participants until IRB approval is provided by participating researchers. The Pool coordinator will assure that researchers have provided all of the necessary information and will approve the study before the study is visible to student participants in the system.

Within the narrative description of each study posted in the system, explicit language is added at the end of the study description notifying students that they may earn alternative course credit through the procedure detailed above.

How Participants Are Recruited

1. After receiving study approval from IRB and the CoMC Pool coordinator (described above), the following information from the Study Request form and from the Sona System is made visible to students during recruitment.

a. Study name

b. Study type (e.g., lab based or online)

c. Study status (e.g., approved/active)

d. Eligibility Requirements (if provided)

e. Duration

f. Credits

g. Abstract (if provided)

h. Description

i. Preparation, Pre-requisites, or restrictions (if provided)

j. Researcher(s) name(s) and email(s)

k. Participant sign-up deadline

l. Participant cancellation deadline (if provided)

m. IRB proposal number

n. Time slots available (if applicable)

2. Students create their own participant accounts by providing their name, emails, and course information. These accounts are updated by students each semester with respect to the courses in which they are current enrolled. Furthermore, students are removed from their course associations at the end of each academic term and immediately prior to the start of a new academic term.

3. Students may be notified about studies in two ways: (1) Students, once an account is created, may self-select if/when they would like to sign into their account and view available studies, which they can do at any time; (2) The CoMC pool director or lab manager generates a generic email when a new study goes active notifying students that there is a new study available on Sona. When signing up, only open/available time slots are visible to students. No information about other participants is accessible to students.

4. Participants may cancel an appointment, via Sona or by contacting the researcher, before scheduled participation without any system-related penalties. The cancellation notice time may vary by study and is visible within the study information posted for students.

5. When a student does not show up for a scheduled session and has not canceled the session, the researcher will code the session as an unexcused no-show in Sona. Students who have two unexcused no-shows will be locked out of sign-ups for additional research sessions. Students receive automated emails from the system notifying them of this status, and the Pool Coordinator or lab manager also emails students to inform them of their status after two unexcused no-shows. To return to active status for sign-ups in Sona, students must schedule an appointment with the Pool Coordinator or lab manager to discuss their unexcused no-shows to have status returned to active.

Informed Consent

All studies conducted using the CoMC Pool must follow informed consent process guidelines established by the TTU IRB and in accordance with their individual IRB proposal (e.g., information sheets for exempt proposals, written consent for expedited and full board proposals). Any special waivers of consent relevant to an individual study would need to be described within that study’s IRB proposal. Informed consent is not obtained within the Sona web-based system, and researchers must include their consenting process within their online studies, per IRB requirements.

Assigning Participation Credit

The credit students receive for each study will vary based on the amount of time it is estimated it will take students to complete the study. Credit is provided in 15-minute (.25 hours) increments. A one-hour study is worth 1 credit, and studies that take more or less time will be credited appropriately (e.g., a 30-minute study will be worth half a credit, a 90-minute study will be worth 1.5 credits). Lab-based studies will be provided an additional .25 credit incentive for participants over online studies.

The amount of credit each study is worth will be clearly posted on the study sign-up information page, which is visible to students prior to volunteering to participate in that study.

When students sign up for a study, they are asked to assign that credit to a course included in the participant pool within a given academic semester. The online system does not allow participants to count a credit toward more than one course. Participants can change the course to which that credit is assigned through the Sona system. Participants can also monitor how many credits they have earned and reassign credits to different classes up until the end of the individual study day as indicated on TTU’s academic calendar for each academic term. Students are informed that there is no guarantee of future credit opportunities, such that if students wait until the end of the semester to start earning credits, there is no guarantee that there will be any certain amount of study participation opportunities available. Per procedures outlined throughout this document, however, students needing credits could complete alternate tasks to earn those credits up until the end of the individual study day.

Researchers are instructed to enter study participation credits into the Sona System within one week of study completion. After two days of not awarding study credits, researchers are sent daily reminders about uncredited time slots until all students who signed up (and did not cancel a session) for a study are either credited or marked as not showing up for the session.

Procedures specific to web-based studies:

1. A participant must at least complete the consent procedure for a web-based study to receive credit for participating in that study. Simply logging on to the website for the study does not constitute "keeping the appointment" or "participating" in a web-based study. Therefore, no credit will be awarded for students who log on but do not complete even the consent procedure for web-based studies. Students who log on, but decline participation after the consent procedure will not receive a credit penalty and will not be marked as no-shows. Students in this situation will receive full credit, consistent with IRB expectations at TTU.

2. Occasionally, students sign up for a web-based study, but do not log into the website or complete the study's consent procedure. Those students do not receive any credit.

Procedures specific to lab-based study:

1. Participants must sign up for a specific time appointment for a study.

2. Researchers will have a paper or electronic list of study session participants for each time slot that they use to determine who shows up and stays for the consent procedure. To protect student’s identities, this list is separate from any study questionnaire and is simply a means to record participation (yes/no) for entry into the Sona system for credit. The list must be destroyed once credit is entered in the Sona system.

3. Because there is no educational benefit, simply showing up for the appointment and then leaving does not constitute "keeping the appointment" in a non-web-based study. Therefore, no credit will be awarded for students who arrive for the appointment but do not have the study explained to them via the consent procedure for non-web-based studies. These students may be marked as no-shows on the credit form (see no-show cancellation policy sections 5.4, 5.4).

4. Students arriving on time, stay for the consent procedure, and decline to become participants in a non-web-based study will receive full study credit for keeping their appointments.

5. Students who complete the consent procedure for a study and agree to become participants will receive at least the default amount of credit for that individual session, regardless of any later decision they might make about early withdrawal from that session. Note that students who withdraw from a study session before completing the session will forfeit the opportunity to participate in any future sessions for that study; thus, these students will not receive additional credits for other appointments that would have been required by the study.

6. Participants who complete the study session in less time than was anticipated by the researchers will receive the default amount of credit, regardless of the amount of time spent in the study session.

7. For lab-based studies, if a participant spends .25 hours or more of time in a study session than was anticipated by the researcher and specified in the default amount of credit, then that participant will receive an additional .25 credit for each extra .25 hours that is spent in the study session.

8. Researchers have an obligation to keep all appointments with participants. If appointments must be canceled, researchers will do so at least 24 hours in advance via Sona. No credit is awarded for appointments canceled in this way. If cancellation cannot occur at least 24 hours before the scheduled appointment, researchers will ensure that someone is waiting in the scheduled room for the study to credit the participants who keep their appointments. Participants will receive full credit for keeping these appointments.

9. If participants fail to keep an appointment (without proper cancellation notice), then they do not receive any credit and may be marked as no-shows on the credit form (see no-show cancellation policy section above).

SONA Online Study Request Form