COBE Lab rooms and equipment are free to use for researchers at Aarhus University.
Researchers are responsible for covering the cost of ethics certificates and of paying participants. Additionally, researchers will typically pay for additional pieces of software/hardware that need to be purchased for an experiment to take place (i.e., pieces beyond the scope of what the Lab already have).
To suggest new equipment for the Lab to buy, please fill out the suggestion form found here.
Head to bss.au.dk/cbl and navigate to For Researchers using the left hand menu.
You will find links to the following using the menu on the left:
All researchers, including co-authors and research assistants must complete ethics training and email the certificate to cobelab@au.dk.
If you are paying participants via automatic bank transfer then yes—we require you to complete the Project Account Information Form and to email it to cobelab@au.dk.
Head to bss.au.dk/cbl and navigate to For Researchers on the left hand menu. On the left hand menu under 'Paying participants' you will find a link to download the Project Account Information Form.
The Project Account Information Form asks for the following information:
The unit number (enhedsnummer), position code (stillingstype) and salary code (lønkode) are fixed: 2555, 902 and 6930, respectively. These must not be changed.
If you do not know the required information you are advised to contact your local finance controller.
Booking rooms and resources is a feature of bss.au.dk/en/cognition-and-behavior-lab/ and requires that the research project be in the 'Active' stage. Practically speaking, this means the following preliminary steps must have been successfully completed:
1) You must have submitted a Pre-study Form and this must have been approved by lab management.
2) Lab management must have received all ethics certificates from the research group members.
3) You must have submitted a Research Ethics Checklist and this must have been approved by the Lab’s Human Subjects Committee.
4) Lab management must have received the Project Account Information Form.
Once the above steps have been fulfilled, the project moves to the ‘Active’ stage. During the Active stage a researcher can book rooms and equipment. Please consult the Online Booking System Manual for researchers for further information for how to do this.
First you must submit a Pre-study Form. Lab management will review this application, and once approved will create a project for you on cobelab.au.dk. Researchers will be mailed a username and password subsequently. Please allow 2–3 working days for this to happen.
On cobelab.au.dk you will find the booking system and project status overview.
For security purposes, bss.au.dk/en/cognition-and-behavior-lab/ requires an Aarhus University network connection or VPN. Therefore it is conceivable that you will not be able to access this site from home/overseas.
Typically, yes. If you want to use one of the lab rooms then you will need to book a room and the eye tracker. Simply follow the instructions in our Online Booking System Manual, which covers booking more than one resource at a time.
Getting a researcher account on Sona requires you to have submitted a Pre-study Form and for this to have been approved by lab management.
Lab management will then provide you details of a researcher account on Sona.
Please note that the study description you enter in Sona must be approved by lab management. Furthermore, your study will only be accessible to participants once:
1) Lab management have received all ethics certificates from the research group.
2) You have submitted a Research Ethics Checklist and this is approved by the Lab’s internal Human Subjects Committee.
3) Lab management have received the Project Account Information Form.
Once the above steps have been fulfilled, the project moves to the ‘Active’ stage. Only during the Active stage will you be able to recruit participants. Consult our Sona manual for researchers for information on how to use the Sona system.
You will have different usernames and passwords to each.
Yes—we require all the necessary documentation and approvals before you can collect any data, regardless of whether you use COBE Lab rooms and equipment or not.
No—the login details to Sona and cobelab.au.dk are independent. You will have different usernames and passwords to each.
Yes to both questions! Participants get a notification of their sign-up immediately. It contains study information such as contact details of the research group, date and location of study.
Participants also receive a reminder mail at approximately 18:00 the day prior to their time slot.
Once your study is approved and visible in Sona, all eligible participants are able to see it. At this point, the most effective way to recruit participants is to advertise your study by talking at university lectures, handing out promotional material for the Lab (available in the assistant lab manager's office), posting on social media, etc.
In addition, you can request that Lab management advertise your study via our social media platforms on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, or by sending a study invitation email to eligible participants within Sona. Please note that not every request can be accommodated, as we try to strike a balance between helping researchers and not spamming the participant group with too many messages, which may alienate them.
For a variety of reasons, COBE Lab's Human Subjects Committee cannot generally offer ethics approval for studies outside of the Lab. We would instead direct you to the Institutional Review Board at Aarhus University (https://medarbejdere.au.dk/administration/forskning-talent/ansvarligforskningspraksis/etisk-godkendelse-af-forskningsprojekter/).
Another option is to apply for approval from the Regional Ethics Committee (https://www.fagperson.sundhed.rm.dk/forskning-og-innovation/anmeldelse-og-registrering-af-projekter/om-videnskabsetisk-komite). Depending on what you need, their formal reply may be a valid ethics approval, even if they state that the study does not need regional ethics approval.