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Click HERE to access the sona-systems

Research Participant Information

We are glad that you have decided to participate in some of the exciting research being conducting in the psychology department. It is important that you carefully read the registration and participation instructions before you complete any studies. We use an online system called Sona Systems to coordinate and administer research participation. You can access this site at http://usf.sona-systems.com.

Contents

  • Important Dates
  • How to Register
  • How to Login
  • Signing up for Experiments
  • Cancellation Policy
  • Completed Experiments
  • Errors/Bugs in the system

Important Dates:

5/19/08: Pool Opens for Students in Summer A and C sessions
On this date you will have access to the system and be able to sign up for experiments. If you have never used the Sona system you will need to create a new account. You can create a new account my clicking "Participant Registration" in the lower left corner of the sign-in page. If you have used the system in the past your account is still active. If you forgot your password click under "Lost your password" located on the bottomleft column of the page.

7/9/08: Pool Closes for Students in Summer C
This is the last day to complete any experiments for the semester. Any experiments completed after this date will not count. Make sure that all of the extra credit you earned for the semester is being applied to the correct course. There can be no changes made after this time. ANY CREDIT THAT IS NOT ASSIGNED TO THE DESIRED COURSE BY July 9th WILL BE LOST!

7/14/08: Pool Opens for Students in Summer B
On this date you will have access to the system and be able to sign up for experiments. If you have never used the Sona system you will need to create a new account. You can create a new account my clicking "Participant Registration" in the lower left corner of the sign-in page. If you have used the system in the past your account is still active. If you forgot your password click under "Lost your password" located on the bottomleft column of the page.

8/8/08:Pool Closes for Students in Summer B
This is the last day to complete any experiments for the semester. Any experiments completed after this date will not count. Make sure that all of the extra credit you earned for the semester is being applied to the correct course. There can be no changes made after this time. ANY CREDIT THAT IS NOT ASSIGNED TO THE DESIRED COURSE BY August 8th WILL BE LOST!

How to Register:

If you have participated using the Sona-system before then you should already have an account. If you cannot remember your password than go to the sign-in page (http://usf.sona-systems.com) and select "RETRIEVE PASSWORD" located toward the bottom of the page. DO NOT register an account if you already have one. Having more than one account will make it difficult to accurately assigned extra credit to your classes.

If you need to register, click the "Request an account" link on the sign-in page. Enter the information requested. Make sure to correctly enter your information. You will be asked to create a user name. After you submit your request a password will be email to the email address you provided. Please enter this email address carefully and keep it current as this is the primary means by which you will receive all announcements regarding the Psychology Participant Pool policies and procedures.

How to Login:

Enter your user name (this you created yourself and password). If you lost (or don’t know) your password, simply enter your username or email in the Lost Password field. It will be sent to you.

---- LOGGED IN ----
Home

This page is the first page you come to after logging in. It will contain any Announcements by the Administrator. You will notice an icon next to your name, at the top of the page. Click this to change your profile information.

When you log in for the first time, you will be requested to fill out a prescreen questionaire. These are questions that your Administrator has created in order to tailor Survey Questionnaires and Experiments to specific Participants. You will not be able to proceed until this information is filled out.

At the bottom of the page, you will notice an icon that will return you to this Home page. You will notice links to Policies, your institutions FAQ page, this tutorial, and a contact link. On the right there is an icon to pull up a calendar to help you schedule, and an icon that logs you out.

ALWAYS LOG OUT when done! There is an automatic logout for inactivity, but this is not fail-safe. Be sure you log out, especially when using a public terminal, to prevent others from accessing your records.

Experiments

This is a listing of experiments, some of which are available for you to sign up. Click DETAILS to get more information, including available sign-up times. After reading the experiment parameters, if you meet the criteria, click the SIGN UP button next to your desired Time Slot. You will be taken to an authorization screen to confirm your selection. Click CONFIRM if everything is correct. If your request is honored, you will be taken back to the Experiment list where you will notice that experiment is marked by a “scheduled” icon.

Canceling an Appointment

If you signed up for any experiments, you will see them listed here. You have the ability to cancel the appointment up until a time specified by the research of each indivdual studies. It is important to make sure you are aware of the cancellation policy of each study for which you sign up to particpate. After the cancellation window has closed, the action button on the right will change to “CONFIRMED”, and you will have to contact the researcher directly in order to cancel. If you do not cancel a schedule appointment you will be deducted 1 point. You must contact the researcher directly to reschedule an appointment in which you received negative credit.

By clicking PRINT SCHEDULE, a listing of your appointments will pop up for you to print. This is helpful if you don’t always have access to an online computer.

Completed Experiments

This listing shows experiments that have been completed and credited. After you finish an experiment, please allow 48 hours for the Researcher to enter your credit. You will see a summary of credits. If you click on the details of the credit you will see the course which the credit has been assigned. You can reassign the credit to another course as long as that course is listed on your course list. After the particpant pool closes for the semester, you will not be able to change any of this information.

ERRORS / BUGS

Errors and Bugs are never a desired result of the system, but they do happen. We take these matters seriously, repairing errors and bugs immediately. Please report anything that doesn’t look right to your Administrator. Be specific in the information you provide: What time was the error noticed? What page is it on, or what page were you trying to access? What is your browser type? Was there an error code? If so, what was it? Describe the problem.