Sona manual for researchers

Researchers will receive a username and password via email. The system administrators are COBE Lab management. Any issues or questions concerning the system should be addressed to cobelab@au.dk.

Passwords can be edited using the ‘My Profile’ option, and we recommend you change your password every semester.

NB: On the front page of the Sona site you will see a link to request an account. This is for participants only.

If you would like to be able to login to Sona as a participant (for example if you want to see your study as potential participants will see it), then please contact lab management. We can add the role of "Participant" to your account, which will allow you to login as either a researcher or a participant.

Two-part studies using Sona often resort to having a questionnaire (Part 1) followed by a lab study (Part 2). In the below text, we will discuss two configurations of such, depending on whether all participants from Part 1 should be eligible for Part 2, or whether only a specified sample of Part 1 participants should be eligible for Part 2. We'll walk through both.

a) All Part 1 participants should be eligible for Part 2

This is frequently used in the situation where participants are required to complete an online survey or task (Part 1) prior to an experimental task at COBE Lab (Part 2). The Part 1 responses of a participant do not affect his/her eligibility for Part 2. 

To configure this setup in Sona, we recommend you to do the following: 

• Create one Standard Study (time slots will be for the Part 2 lab session).
• Enter the Part 1 survey URL in the respective URL field: researchers of the Lab typically use Qualtrics, for which Aarhus BSS has a campus license.  
• In order to be able to collect participant IDs of those that have completed the survey, so that you can eventually merge the data with that from the lab, you should follow the Qualtrics integration instructions, as stipulated here. 
• Set an invitational code (password) that a participant must enter in order to sign up for Part 2. The invitational code should be accessed by the participant at the end of Part 1. To show an invitational code in Qualtrics, a custom end of survey message must be displayed (again, follow the Qualtrics integration information, here).
• Remember to allocate time slots for the lab sessions.
• Remember to ask for participant IDs during the lab session so that you can merge the data with the survey responses.

b) Only a specific sample of Part 1 participants should be eligible for Part 2

You may wish to run a study that selects only a sample of Part 1 respondents for Part 2, depending on their answers provided in Part 1. To establish this using our Sona system, you create two studies. There are two ways of doing this in Sona, depending on how you configure your Qualtrics survey.  

Solution 1: If the Qualtrics survey is generic (the same for all recipients):

• Create two studies in Sona: one as an Online External Study (e.g., a Qualtrics questionnaire, Part 1), the second one as Standard Study (Part 2).
• Set Part 1 as a requirement for Part 2.
• It is recommended to append 'Part 1' and 'Part 2'  to the study names in Sona so that participants know that there are two parts.
• It is also advised to set an invitational code for Part 2 so that only eligible participants can sign up. This will be mailed to the sample of eligible participants after Part 1 in an invitational mail (instructions below). 
• Follow the Qualtrics integration instructions (here) so that participant IDs can be recorded as a variable during the Part 1 survey. Conduct your analysis so that you can identify the participants you would like to invite for Part 2 by their unique Sona ID number. 
• Once the Part 1 deadline has expired, you can invite participants for Part 2. As you have only one time slot for Part 1 (this being an online study), you can manually change the status of eligible participants in the Part 1 time slot to "No-show excused" (via the Study menu > View/Administer Time slots > click Modify on the time slot).
• Mark the prospective Part 2 participants as excused no shows, then go to the Part 1 Study menu > Contact participants > select Participants who were marked as a no-show > write an invitational mail for Part 2 including the invitational code and URL to the Sona Part 2 study. By doing this only the chosen selected group of Part 1 participants will receive a mail for Part 2. 
• Then change the status of Part 1 participants from Excused no-show back to Participated.

Solution 2: Program your Qualtrics survey to only show the invitational code for qualified participants

• Follow the first three steps of Solution 1 but now condition the invitational code to be displayed only to pre-defined participant characteristics, so that only eligible Part 2 participants are presented with the Part 2 Sona URL and the Part 2 invitational code.
• Participants that are not eligible for Part 2 (based on their answers within Qualtrics) should be presented with a message informing them that they are not eligible for Part 2 and thanking them for their time.
• Remember to add time slots for Part 2 and to collect participant ID numbers for the Part 2 session, so that you can merge the data. 

[We thank Simon Karg for contributing to this information]

Due to privacy reasons, a researcher is not permitted to view prescreen responses of participants that have signed up to their study.

Please note that the 'Contact Participants' option denotes contacting those participants that are already signed up for your study, not all participants that are eligible for participation. 

Researchers do not currently have administrative rights to send mass emails to eligible participants in Sona.

Lab management sends regular mass emails to qualified participants and do not wish to send more than one or two emails per week. If researchers would like for lab management to send a mass study invitation, please contact lab management directly. 

Note that it is only possible to send emails to participants who have given their specific consent to receive study invitations. 

To contact all of the participants signed up to your study, on the study menu click 'Study Information' then 'Contact Participants'. This option also allows you to contact participants who signed up between two specified dates.

Please note that participants are identified by a unique ID Code. Researchers will not be able to see names or email addresses of participants. A phone number of each participant is accessible, in case there is the need for immediate contact. 

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, only lab management have the right to contact the entire pool of participants. 

To edit study information click on the desired study and click 'Change Study Information'. Edited information could include changes to location, payment details, duration of study, or alternatively, one may wish to make the study inactive.

Currently Lab management do not need to approve  any change(s) but this is liable to change in the future.

Please note that any update is not automatically mailed to current participants. 

No! New studies are not automatically emailed to the pool. It is recommended that researchers have an agreement with lab management as to the most appropriate way of informing those eligible. In busy periods it is simply not tenable to send participants emails of each new study. Alternatives are sending a weekly mail to participants and promoting on social media.

Yes — participants receive an automated email scheduled at 18:00 the night before participation. The email is in plain text format, and includes the text entered in 'Detailed Description'. Be careful to use only the minimal amount of HTML code in the 'Detailed Description', as the tags will be visible in the email participants see. 

There are certain events in the system which will cause an email notification to be sent to the researcher. Most often, this occurs when a participant has signed up or cancelled their sign up to a study. This option can be customized when configuring a new study under the 'Change Study Information' option.

Researchers may receive other mails/ notifications not related to sign-ups or cancellations. This is most likely due to their mail address being visible to perspective participants, displayed with the study description.

A researcher may wish to delegate the recruitment and organisation of participants to another researcher, for example to a research assistant. This can be implemented in Sona by having both the principal researcher and assistants having their own accounts, with contact information of both available to the pool. However, time slots can be set at the researcher level, making it possible for notifications of signups and cancellations to be seen only by the research assistant. To attain this, click 'Change Study Information' and select ‘Yes’ to the ‘Researchers at Timeslot-Level’ field. 

By undertaking research at COBE Lab you agree to help contribute to the pool of participants. A good way to promote the Lab is by handing out flyers, displaying posters and showing the promotional slide and videos lectures.  

The Lab currently has postcards, bookmarks and posters available for distribution.

For more information on recruitment material, please click here.