Sona Information: Conducting On-Site Studies
SONA WEBSITE: http://ubco.sona-systems.com/
If you are conducting a study that requires meeting your participants face-to-face (such as interviews or tests that require more control than online-surveys), Sona must be used to create timeslots for participants to sign up on. Once timeslots are created participants are free to choose the time that best fits their schedule.
For more information, consult the following topics:
Creating timeslots on Sona for on-site studies
Assigning participants credit on Sona or marking them as a "No Show"
Manually assigning participants to timeslots
Creating timeslots on Sona for on-site studies
Once logged in to Sona, the following options will be displayed
- My Studies
- All Studies
- Add a New Study
- My Profile
Click on "My Studies". This will provide a list of all the studies that are available to edit. On the left will be the study name with a brief description of the study. On the right will be the option to view the study information or timeslots.
To create timeslots, choose a study and click on "Timeslots" (this must be done for each study separately). This will show the timeslots which exist for the current study.
At the bottom of the page there will be three options
- Add A Timeslot
- Add Multiple Timeslots
- Delete Multiple Timeslots
To add a single timeslot click on "Add A Timeslot" and add, or if editing an existing timeslot, confirm the following information about the timeslot
- Date
- Start time (ensure correct time of day is chosen)
- End time (allow for the default length of the studies participation requirement)
- # of participants (the maximum number of participants to participate simultaneously)
- Location (ensure that this is correct)
- Researcher (only if there are multiple researchers in charge of the study)
Once this information is accurately entered, click on "Add this timeslot".
To add multiple timeslots click on "Add Multiple Timeslots". This option includes both the ability to create multiple timeslots in the same day, and the ability to copy the schedule of an entire week onto a subsequent (or previous) week. Enter the following information
- Number of timeslots
- Start Date (ensure correct date each time)
- Start time (ensure the correct time of day is chosen)
- Free time between slots (this is zero minutes by default, indicating back-to-back timeslots)
- Move timeslots to Business Hours (this is generally not applicable)
- # of participants (the maximum number of participants to participate simultaneously)
- Location (ensure that this is correct)
- Researchers (only if there are multiple researchers in charge of the study)
Once this information is accurately entered, click "Add". A confirmation page will come up where you can confirm each individual timeslot is accurate (all are selected as accurate by default). If all are correct, click on "Add Selected Timeslots".
Assigning participants credit on Sona or marking them as a "No Show"
Normally, participants sign up for their chosen timeslot and this is how you know that you have testing sessions. Once the students have completed their participation, credit must be assigned to them in a timely fashion. Do not wait to do this, as it may be easy to forget.
To assign credit
- Go into the timeslots for the current study
- Go into the timeslot the participant had signed up in by clicking the "modify" button on the right hand side of the page
- Scroll down and select "Participated"
If a participant did not show up for their timeslot, do not mark them as "Participated". Their absence must be reflected by use of the "Unexcused No-Show" option. The participant may participate in a future timeslot, but it is imperative that their status remain as "Unexcused No-Show" for the timeslot that they had missed. This is part of ensuring that the system remains fair for all students.
Manually assigning participants to timeslots
Participants may be manually signed up for a study timeslot if they have not signed themselves up on Sona, but only if they have the option to use Sona (i.e., they are registered in a course that offers Sona credit and have a Sona account). This option is useful for when a participant had not signed up, but the researcher has time to run them through their experiment. To manually sign a participant up in a timeslot
- Go to the timeslots for the study and select "Modify" for the timeslot that the participant will be filling
- Scroll down to the manual sign up section at the bottom of the screen
- Input either the participant's student ID number or their last name then click "Sign-Up"
- Select the student from the subsequent list that comes up
- Ensure that credit is assigned upon their completion of their participation (click here for information regarding assigning credit)
Last reviewed 
2/4/2011 1:07:53 PM
