College of Science and Health > Academics > Psychology > Research > Intro Psych Research

Intro Psych Research Participation

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​This page contains information about the Research Participation requirement for Intro Psych, and can be accessed using the shortcut:
https://go.depaul.edu/intropsych​​

Instructions

For Students enrolled in Psy 105 and Psy 106 (or others offering credit)
For Instructors of Psy 105 and Psy 106
For Researchers who wish to collect data from the subject pool
For alternative credit papers: Instructions

Go directly to the Experiment Management System if you have already read the instructions below. If not, READ THIS PAGE FIRST.   

 
Use the Participant FAQ to view a list of questions commonly asked by students.
 
GENERAL INFORMATION   
All students in either of DePaul's Introductory Psychology courses (PSY 105 and PSY 106) in the fall, winter, and spring quarters are required to participate in research studies as part of the course, or to complete specified alternative assignments. The research participation requirement gives students the opportunity to see psychological science in action, and to learn about research that is being done at DePaul. The experiments are conducted by faculty and graduate students in the department of psychology, and all have been reviewed to ensure that they meet ethical guidelines.  Current details (including any updates) of the requirement can be found at https://go.depaul.edu/intropsych
 
Note that the Research Participation requirement is NOT OPTIONAL for Intro Psych! Failing to do the required 5 credits can result in a penalty of more than a full letter grade for the course.  This applies to all Intro Psych classes during the regular fall, winter, and spring quarters (but not to summer or intersession classes).
 
DEADLINES
  • All credits must be completed by 5pm Chicago time on the last weekday of classes (before Final Exam week) in order to receive credit.  The last day of classes means the last weekday before final exam week begins (not including Saturday or Sunday), not the last day your particular class meets.  If finals week begins on Monday, for example, credits are due the previous Friday.
  • Papers must be emailed to the Psychology Research Coordinators at psychexperiments@depaul.edu by the last day of classes (before Final Exam week) or by the deadline in your syllabus, whichever is earlier.
  • Prescreening must be completed during the first two weeks of classes.
PRESCREENING   
The prescreening survey is available on the Web during the first two weeks of classes. It should take you one hour or less, and is worth one half-hour to one hour of research participation credit (depending on the length of the survey each quarter). After you register at the link below ("Signing Up for Experiments") you will be asked to complete the prescreening survey the first time you log into the system. You must do the prescreening survey the first time you log in (immediately after you agree to the "Human Subjects and Privacy Policy"). If you decline to do the prescreening, you will not have another opportunity later. 
 
It is very important that you register and complete the prescreening survey during the first two weeks of classes. After that date, the prescreening survey will be unavailable and you will miss out on an easy opportunity to complete 1/2 to 1 hour of research participation credit over the web. You will also miss out on many additional experiments that have prescreening as a prerequisite.
 
SIGNING UP FOR EXPERIMENTS   
To participate in an experiment, you must sign up on the Web at http://depaul.sona-systems.com.  This is the ONLY place you can sign up for a study to receive credit for psychology class requirements.  If a study is not listed here, it CANNOT offer credit for psychology courses.  It is important that you set up your Sona Systems account as soon as possible, even if you plan to do only optional papers rather than experiments, so that your instructor can verify your enrollment and record your credits correctly. You must also have an account set up in order to receive important announcements regarding the Research Participation Requirements throughout the quarter. When you are ready to sign up, go to the Experiment Management System.
 
When you go to the Sona Systems web site, click the "Campus Connect Log In" button and use your Campus Connection credentials when prompted to.  (If you do not have an @depaul.edu email address, or you can not get the Campus Connect Log In to work, email the coordinator.)  After you log in, be sure to select the correct section in the "Courses" window (scroll up or down if your section does not appear in the list). If your section is not listed, email the Research Participation Coordinator.
 
If you already have a Sona Systems account from a previous quarter, you may need to email the coordinator to have the account reactivated before you can log in again this quarter. 
 
Once your account is set up, you can log in to schedule studies.   
 
When you sign up for a study, be sure to write down all the information about the experiment (time, place, experimenter, experimenter's phone number, experiment number). It is your responsibility to keep track of this information, and you will not always be contacted with a reminder of the appointment.
 
Do not sign up for a study that you do not meet the eligibility requirements for.  Most studies are open to anyone, but if the study description says "Only left-handed Nobel Laureates" and you sign up anyway, you will not get credit.  
 
ALTERNATIVE PAPER OPTION   
For students who wish to opt out of participating in studies, or have been blocked from participation for two "no-shows," you can find more information about the alternative paper option here.
 
AGE REQUIREMENTS   
You must be 18 or older in order to participate in most studies.  Some studies may be able to enroll students who are under 18 with parental permission.  Those studies will say "Students under 18 must have parental permission" in the "Eligibility" column in the list of studies, or will otherwise indicate that participants can be under 18 years old. If the "Eligibility" column says "Must be at least 18 years old" without any mention of an exception for parental permission, however, no one under 18 may participate.  Under the federal regulations, minors (persons under the age of 18 in Illinois) may not participate in survey or interview research determined to be exempt by the IRB/Office of Research Protections. In order to participate in minimal risk/expedited review research protocols, students under the age of 18 must obtain a general written parental permission to participate in any study at the beginning of the quarter and have that document on file in the main office of the Psychology Department (420 Byrne). Each student should then provide assent for participation in each specific research study they participate in.
 
If you are not yet 18, you must have a parent sign the Parental Consent Form and turn it in to the Research Participation Coordinator in the Psychology Department main office before you can participate in any experiments. You will also need to present a copy of your parental consent form to each experimenter when you arrive, so make a copy for yourself before turning it in.
 
NUMBER OF HOURS   
Basic Requirement: Each student is required to participate in 5 hours of experimental research for PSY 105 and an additional 5 hours for PSY 106 during the quarter that you take each course. (Credits can not be carried forward from a previous quarter or double-counted for two courses).  Failure to complete this basic requirement will result in a lower grade in the class. For each hour you fail to complete, your course grade will be reduced by 3% (three percentage points).
 
Extra Credit: If you do complete the required 5 hours or more you will receive extra credit towards your course grade.  For each credit hour completed 0.5% will be added to your course grade, up to a maximum of 3.5% (3.5 percentage points) for completing 7 credits.   Extra credit can be applied only to a passing grade (D or better); a grade of F is not eligible for extra credit.  Check your course syllabus for any additional information.  
 
Note that the "Required" number shown on the Sona Systems experiment signup web site may not be right sometimes, for various technical reasons.  Please ignore it.  The correct number of hours required will always be what this page says, unless your instructor tells you otherwise.  
 
Here is an example of how the number of credits affects your grade, assuming your course grade was 86.5% (B) before research credits:

5 Credits Required

    

Example if course grade is:

 86.5% (B)
     

 

 

Credits Earned

Change in course grade

   New course grade  

0

-15.00%

  

71.5%

C-

0.5

-13.50%

  

73.0%

C-

1

-12.00%

  

74.5%

C

1.5

-10.50%

  

76.0%

C

2

-9.00%

  

77.5%

C+

2.5

-7.50%

  

79.0%

C+

3

-6.00%

  

80.5%

B-

3.5

-4.50%

  

82.0%

B-

4

-3.00%

  

83.5%

B

4.5

-1.50%

  

85.0%

B

5

2.50%

  

89.0%

B+

5.5

2.75%

  

89.3%

B+

6

3.00%

  

89.5%

B+

6.5

3.25%

  

89.8%

B+

7

3.50%

  

90.0%

A-
 
(If you are in a course other than Psy 105 or 106 and your instructor is offering extra credit for research participation, contact your instructor to determine how many research credits you are allowed to complete for that course.)
 
Important Note: The number of credits required for each Intro Psych course will not be reduced during the course of the term under normal circumstances. If you are unable to complete enough experiments to fulfill the requirement, you will need to complete enough summary papers to make up the difference. (See "Alternative Credit" below.)
 
Bonus for Lab Studies: Some experiments may take less than one hour, some may take more than one hour, and some may require that you come back for more than one session.  You will receive participation credits in half-hour units (0.5 credits for 30 minutes or less, 1.0 credits for 60 minutes or less, etc.).  In addition, a one-half credit bonus is awarded for each laboratory-based study for which you arrive on time.  A 30-minute lab study, therefore, is worth 1.0 credits, a 60-minute lab study is worth 1.5 credits, and so on - If you arrive on time for your scheduled appointment.  Thus, in-person lab-based studies are worth more credits than online studies of the same length.
 
Online Studies:  You may earn up to 3 credits through online studies.  The rest must be earned from lab-based studies and/or alternative credit papers.  The experiment management system will not permit you to sign up for more than 3 credits of online studies.  This limit is enforced automatically and is not something you need to keep track of yourself - you simply will not be able to sign up for more than the permitted number of online studies.  If the limit ever changes, the system will automatically make more online studies available to you.  If the system lets you sign up for an online study, then it can count towards your total.  Students in online courses may not have any limit on online study credits - check your syllabus or course web site for more information.  Also check the top of this web page for special announcements.
 
KEEPING APPOINTMENTS   
It is very important that you keep your appointments for lab studies and arrive on time.  The faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates working on research projects waiting to conduct the experiment are busy just like you are, and it was just as difficult for them to find time to run the experiment as it was for you to find time to do it.  When you miss an appointment without canceling, you make it harder for the students running the experiments to finish collecting data in order to complete a project for a class, or to get their degree.  Please be considerate!
 
If you can not keep an appointment that you have signed up for, you must cancel the appointment using the same website where you signed up.  For most studies, you must cancel at least 1 hour in advance. Studies which require more advance notice of a cancellation (up to 24 hours prior to the study) will clearly say so in the study requirements when you sign up. Cancellation must be done on the website where you signed up, not by phone, email, or personal communication! If you "no-show" or are more than five minutes late to more than one study, you may not be permitted to participate in any further studies and must use summary papers to complete your credits. If exceptional circumstances prevented you, through no fault of your own, from cancelling, you will need to provide a note from the Dean of Students office documenting that you were, due to sudden illness or emergency, unable to use the website to cancel prior to your experiment. This note must be given to the Coordinator, NOT to the researcher or your instructor.
 
Please be on time to your appointments. You must be on time to be eligible for the 0.5 credit bonus for lab studies. If you are late do not disturb other participants if the researcher has a sign up asking you not to knock or enter after the experiment has started.  If you are more than five minutes late, you may be counted as a "no-show" and may not be permitted to do the experiment.  If you can not do the experiment because you were late, you will not receive credit for the study.
 
If you show up on time but the experimenter is not there within 15 minutes, please leave a note for the experimenter and download this Form. Fill it out and email it to psychexperiments@depaul.edu. Turning this slip in to the Research Participant Coordinator will help insure you receive credit for your attendance. If the Coordinator is able to verify your information with the experimenter, you will receive one credit for the experiment. If you missed the experiment because you arrived late or at the wrong location, however, you will not receive credit.
 
KEEPING RECORDS   
After each experiment, the researcher will record your participation so that you receive credit for the study. If the experimenter asks you to fill in your name on a participant log, be sure to print clearly.
 

You should also print out the StudentRecordSheet.pdf and use it to keep your own records. You should bring it to each experiment and have the experimenter sign it as proof of your participation. Hold on to it, just in case there is an error in our record keeping. For experiments conducted over the web, you may receive an email as proof of your participation instead, or be presented with a page you can print out for your records.

You can check your credit totals any time in the Experiment Management System website. Keep in mind that it may take a day or two after a study is completed for credit to appear in the system.
 
Be sure to assign your credits to the course for which you want them counted. In many cases your credits will be initially "unassigned" and will not be counted until you assign them to a specific course. If you are enrolled in both PSY 105 and 106, you also have the option of changing which course credit is assigned for up until the last day of regular classes.  Credits must be earned during the quarter you are enrolled - they can not be carried over from a previous quarter.
 
CONTACT INFORMATION   
If you have questions or concerns about your research participation for Intro Psych, contact the Research Participant Coordinator at the following email address: psychexperiments@depaul.edu

Information for Instructors of PSY 105 and PSY 106 concerning the Introductory Psychology Research Participation Requirement    

 
Applicability:  All sections of Psy 105 and Psy 106 when the Subject Pool is operating (currently during the fall, winter, and spring quarters) including online and evening sessions.  Other psychology courses that offer students credit for research participation when the Subject Pool is operating.  The subject pool does not operate (and the research participation requirement does not apply) for summer or intersession classes.
 
REQUESTING AN ACCOUNT   
You will need an "Instructor" account on the  Experiment Management System in order to retrieve your students' credit reports.  It can be the same account you use as a researcher or PI.  Email the coordinator to request an account, or to add the role of "instructor" to your existing account if you already have one.  In your email, also list the section(s) of PSY 105 and 106 that you are teaching, along with meeting days and times, so that the Coordinator can give you access to your students' credit reports.
 
Send instructor account requests to: psychexperiments@depaul.edu
 
INFORMING STUDENTS ABOUT RESEARCH PARTICIPATION REQUIREMENTS   
On the first day of class, please explain the Research Participation Requirement to your students and encourage them to register and complete the prescreening survey as soon as possible. Make sure they understand that although the prescreening survey is optional, the requirement to earn at least 5 credits is mandatory. You will probably want to print out the instructions for students from this website and show them this page with the Students tab.   Also please provide them with information about the Alternative Paper Option.  Or instead of printing things out you can simply refer them to the web site https://go.depaul.edu/intropsych, which will always have the most current information.
 
Include in your syllabus the URL of the Research Participation instructions site: https://go.depaul.edu/intropsych or, optionally, you can cut and paste the first paragraph of the "GENERAL INFORMATION" section of the student instructions web page into your syllabus to provide the URL along with a brief description of the requirement.  
 
CHECKING YOUR STUDENTS' PROGRESS   
No later than week 5 of the quarter, you should log in to your instructor account on the Experiment Management System and check your class roster. Notify the Coordinator if any students are listed for your section who are not actually enrolled in your class. If any of the students in your class have not yet established accounts in the system, contact them and remind them to do so.
 
FINAL STUDENT CREDIT REPORTS   
You can check your students' current credit totals any time on the Experiment Management System website. The final totals will be emailed to you by the Coordinator some time during final exam week. You should receive an email earlier in the quarter telling you what date to expect the final totals. Until you receive the email with the final totals, credit totals could change, either because new credits have been awarded or because a student who is enrolled in both PSY 105 and 106 has reassigned some credits from one course to the other. You should wait until the coordinator emails you the final credit totals before calculating your course grades.
 
CALCULATING PENALTIES AND BONUSES
The department’s policy for grade penalties and bonuses related to the research requirement are spelled out in the “For Students” section of this web site (https://go.depaul.edu/intropsych). In short, students’ final course grades are penalized 3% (3 percentage points) per missing credit hour (less than 5 credits).  If the student completes 5 or more credits, they receive a bonus of 0.5% per credit hour added to their final course grade, up to a maximum of 3.5% for completing 7 credits.  Your syllabus must clearly state how credits and penalties will be determined or (much preferred) you can just refer students to the web site https://go.depaul.edu/intropsych for the current details.  
 
Calculation Examples
An easy way to calculate the appropriate penalties and bonuses is to use a spreadsheet formula. If you put the number of credits earned in Column A, the following formula in Column B (formatted as a percentage) will give the number of percentage points to add to or subtract from the student’s final course grade:
 
=IF(A1<5,(A1 - 5) *0.03, MIN(A1*0.005, 0.035))
 
See the Instructions for Students section of this web page for an example.
 
If you would like to do all your final grade calculations in the D2L gradebook, create a D2L gradebook entry called “research points” with zero (or some small number such as 0.01) points possible.  In Column C of your spreadsheet multiply Column B by the number of points possible in your course.  Enter the number of points from Column C into the “research points” entry in the D2L gradebook as a positive or negative number.  
 
RECRUITING POLICY
Please do not allow researchers to make announcements about studies or collect data in your fall, winter, or spring classroom, and do not offer students extra credit for participating in particular studies. Direct recruiting of research participants in Intro Psych classes is strictly prohibited during the fall, winter, and spring quarters. Researchers may not announce their study in class, through emails, handouts, flyers, etc. ALL participant recruiting of Intro Psych students must be done through the online Research Participation System, and no credit, extra credit, or payments may be made to Intro Psych students for research participation except as administered through the Research Participation Pool system.  Other psychology courses offering credit for research participation must also use the Sona Systems web site for participant recruitment and signups.  This policy applies only to quarters when the Psychology Subject Pool is in operation (currently fall, winter and spring).
 
CONTACTS   
For routine, administrative, and operational requests and questions, contact the Research Participant Coordinator at: psychexperiments@depaul.edu
 
For questions about Subject Pool policies, or if the Coordinator has not responded to your email within 2 days, contact the Research Participation Pool Manager, David Allbritton.

Information for Researchers who wish to use the Introductory Psychology Research Participation Pool (Subject Pool)   

 
Use the Researcher FAQ to view a list of questions commonly asked by researchers.
 
REQUESTING AN ACCOUNT   
You will need a "Principal Investigator" account on the Experiment Management System in order to set up your study. Each person who will conduct experimental sessions will also need to be in the system as a "Researcher" account (including yourself).  Each user can have a single account with multiple roles, so if you have an existing account as a PI, researcher, participant or instructor you can simply email the coordinator and ask to have another role added to your existing account.  If you do not have an account, go to the Experiment Management System web site and create a participant account by clicking on "Campus Connect Log In" and following the prompts.  Then email the coordinator to have your role changed to PI or Researcher or both.  If you are unable to create a student account first, you can ask the coordinator to create the researcher account for you instead.
 
When you email the coordinator about setting up "Researcher" or "PI" accounts, please provide the following:
 
name, .depaul.edu email address, tenure track faculty sponsor
 
You must indicate who the faculty sponsor or faculty co-investigator is for the project.  This must be a tenure-track or full-time faculty member in the Psychology Department, and you must cc the faculty sponsor when you email to request creation of your account, or when you request reactivation of your account.  (Accounts are deactivated each year and you must email the coordinator to have your account reactivated.)
 
Email the Participant Pool Coordinator with this information at psychexperiments@depaul.edu If you do not receive a response within 2 days, please email the Research Participation Pool Manager, David Allbritton.
 
When you log in to your Sona account, always use the "Campus Connect Log In" button.  If that does not work, contact the coordinator.
 
OBTAINING IRB APPROVAL   
Only studies that have received IRB approval may be posted. You will need your IRB approval number to register a study.  The IRB will want you to describe how you will award credit to participants - see the sections below labeled  "UPDATING CREDIT AND NO-SHOW RECORDS FOR LAB STUDIES" and "CONFIGURING ONLINE STUDIES TO GRANT CREDIT."
 
When registering your study in the system, you will be asked to enter your IRB approval code and IRB approval expiration date. You can find this information in the approval memo sent to you by the IRB. If your study was classified by the IRB as exempt there is no expiration date; in that case just select the latest available date on the menu.
 
Note that studies classified as "exempt" by the IRB are prohibited from including minors as participants.  Under the federal regulations, minors (persons under the age of 18 in Illinois) may not participate in research determined to be exempt. Students who are under the age of 18 may participate in minimal risk/expedited review studies that have received IRB approval to include participants who are under 18. The individual studies must be approved for the recruitment and enrollment of minors by the IRB and must have written into the study plan of work the mechanism for ensuring that parent/guardian permission has been obtained and for obtaining study specific assent from the student, or be eligible for a waiver of these processes. Please consider asking to include students under 18 when you submit your expedited IRB applications in the future so that some studies will be available for Intro Psych students who are under 18.
 
ADDING YOUR STUDY   
You can add either a lab study or an online study. Online studies can be created within the Experiment Management System using a point-and-click interface, or you can use a study hosted on an external website (such as Qualtrics).  Almost all researchers use Qualtrics or some other external (external to Sona Systems) survey site, so be sure to choose "Online External Study" as the study type and NOT "Online Survey Study."  After adding your study to the system be sure to make the study "Active". Then click the link to email the administrator and request that the study be Approved.  Once the study is Approved and Active, participants will be able to see signup slots that you post for it.
 
For online studies, be sure participants have the option to leave unanswered any questions they do not want to answer unless you have IRB approval to require that all questions be answered (See the LRB FAQ).  If you do allow them to leave a question unanswered, the best approach is to make answering each question mandatory before submitting the survey, but include "I prefer not to answer" as an answer option.  
 
You must include in your study abstract "Faculty sponsor: [name of full-time faculty member]" as the first thing in the abstract.  (It must be visible in the list of studies, before any description of the study.)  Optionally in your "Study Abstract" or "Detailed Description" you may also state briefly what tasks participants will do.  You should not say anything about how long the study will take in the abstract or description; there is a "duration" field that already has this information.   The duration must be a multiple of 30 minutes, and you may not say things like "Only 5 minutes for a half-hour of credit!" anywhere in your description.  Any type of competitive advertising for participants in the study descriptions is prohibited.  Please do not put special characters in your study name like "!!!@@@ My study comes first in the list alphabetically."  Studies are displayed to participants in random order, so that does not work anyway.
 
Credits are awarded in half-hour increments.  So an online study that takes 30 minutes or less should be listed as 0.5 credits and 30 minutes duration; between 30 and 60 minutes is 1.0 credits and 60 minutes duration; between 60 and 90 minutes is 1.5 credits, etc.  Credit for lab studies is also awarded in half-hour increments, but a 0.5 credit bonus is added for each session if the student arrives on time for the scheduled appointment.  So a lab study that takes 30 minutes or less should be listed as 1.0 credits and the duration should be "30 minutes";  a study that takes between 30 and 60 minutes should be listed as 1.5 credits and "60 minutes";  60 to 90 minutes is listed as 2.0 credits and "90 minutes," and so on.  Participants can just assume that a "30 minute" duration study will take 30 minutes or less, etc.
 
You must also state the age restrictions of your study in the "Eligibility Requirements" section. Students under the age of 18 cannot be enrolled in studies determined to be exempt by the IRB/Office of Research Protections.  If your IRB approval did not specifically authorize the participation of minors, you must say "Must be at least 18 years old." 
 
Studies that underwent expedited or full IRB review can include participants under 18 if approved by the IRB.  If your study has IRB approval for minors to participate, you should instead state the minimum age for which your study is approved.  If you have permission to enroll subjects as young as 16, for example, you should state "Must be at least 16 years old.  Students under 18 must bring a copy of their signed parental permission form to the study."  (A generic parental permission form is provided to students on the Research Participation website.)  You must have them show you a copy of the signed form when they arrive so that you can verify they have parental permission, and you must also have an IRB-approved mechanism for obtaining the assent of the student.
 
Occasionally studies have received IRB approval to include “attention check” questions that must be answered correctly to get credit for participation.  If you have such a study, please mention it in your email when you ask us to approve it and allocate hours.  If a subject is denied credit for missing an attention check question, update their time slot to “No show - Unexcused” and put “failed attention check” or something similar in the “comments” box.  That will help us distinguish such cases from instances of equipment failure, etc. that we should grant credit for.  You should also make sure that when credit is denied for failing the attention check the participant is redirected by Qualtrics (or whatever software you are using) to a page that clearly explains that they did not get credit and why.  If you are instead denying credit manually in Sona Systems, then at the time you deny credit you should also email the participant (using the "contact" button in the View/Administer Time slots screen) telling them that they were denied credit and why.  Your email should also include the name of the study, the name of the researcher, and the name of the faculty sponsor.
 
 
 
ADDING TIME SLOTS   
You must add time slots for a lab study so that participants can sign up. You must also do so for online studies, specifying a deadline for participants to complete the study.  Please set a deadline no more than a week or two in the future (rather than at the end of the quarter), and post additional time slots as needed.
 
Each study has an initial enrollment cap set by the system. If you find that you are unable to add new time slots, it may be because you have reached this cap. Email the coordinator to request an increase in the cap if you need to schedule more subjects.  How many we are able to give you will depend on supply and demand each quarter.
 
Remember that all studies must be completed by the last day of regular classes (before finals week). Make sure you do not schedule any signup slots later than that date.
 
ONLINE STUDY RESTRICTIONS   
Online studies should be made available to only Loop and evening sections (classes with section numbers greater than 400) and online sections for the first week or two, so that those students who can not do lab studies have a chance to sign up. After a week or two you can remove the course restriction and make the study available to all sections of PSY 105 and PSY 106.  In some cases the first few weeks of the quarter may also be reserved for only lab-based signups.  Researchers conducting online studies are advised to have an alternative source of subjects (such as MTurk) as a backup and to include it in their IRB proposals, in case there is a shortage of subjects.
 
CANCELLATIONS AND "NO-SHOWS"   
Researcher Cancellations and No-Shows:  Researchers must notify participants by at least 5:00 p.m. the day prior to the appointment if a study is to be canceled. If it is not possible to notify participants by 5 p.m., the researcher must either get someone to run the study in their place, or post a sign on the door of the study location telling students it has been canceled and instructing them to go to the Psychology Department main office to fill out a form verifying that they were there on time. The researcher must also email the Research Participation Coordinator about the cancellation (psychexperiments@depaul.edu).
 
Students who arrive on time for a study and find that it has been canceled or that the researcher is not there must leave a note for the researcher and stop by the main office to fill out a form to verify that they were there at the time of the appointment. Participants will receive full credit for those studies that are canceled the same day or those for which the researcher does not show, including the 0.5 credit bonus for lab-based studies.
 
Participant No-Shows.  Participants must use the experiment signup website (depaul.sona-systems.com) to cancel an appointment – they are not expected to contact the researcher directly. If the student does not cancel the appointment at least one hour in advance, or is more than 5 minutes late, this counts as a "no-show" and should be reported in the system.  If a student “no-shows" to more than one study, they may not permitted to participate in any further studies and may be required to use “alternative credit papers” to complete the rest of their research participation requirements.  Experimenters must record “no-shows” in the research participation website promptly in order for them to be counted properly.  Please do not report an unexcused "no-show" for an online study!  Only for lab studies.  Anyone who signed up for your online study but did not complete it should be recorded as a "cancellation," since there is no such thing as a "no-show" for an online study.
 
Cancellation Deadline:  The default cancellation deadline is 1 hour before the scheduled study; that is the latest that students can log into the system and cancel an appointment.  In exceptional cases, researchers may need to set an earlier deadline (such as 24 hours prior to the appointment).  If your cancellation deadline is longer than 1 hour, you must indicate the deadline clearly in the study description so that students will be aware of it when they sign up. 
 
DOWNLOADING YOUR DATA   
If your online study data is stored within the Experiment Management System, be sure to download your data as soon as data collection is completed (and no later than the end of the quarter). End-of-quarter maintenance operations will erase all data from online surveys and the prescreening survey - therefore it is essential that you download your data before the end of each quarter.
 
DEMOGRAPHIC DATA   
 
If you need to report demographic characteristics of your study participants you can use their prescreen survey responses.  If you would like to download the prescreen data for all participants in your study, click on your study and then choose “Download Prescreen Responses”. You can then download all the data at once, in CSV (comma separated) format.  After you extract the demographic data that you need please delete the prescreen data file (even though it does not contain any names).  You must download the prescreening data before the end of the quarter or it will no longer be available.  
 
UPDATING CREDIT AND NO-SHOW RECORDS FOR LAB STUDIES  
After each lab-based experiment session, log into the Experiment Management System and update the participant records by granting credit to the day's participants, and penalizing any no-shows.  Note that you will need to record participants' Sona Systems anonymous ID codes  when they come to the lab so that you can grant them credit later! 
 
CONFIGURING ONLINE STUDIES TO GRANT CREDIT
For online studies on external web sites (such as Qualtrics),  you must  do one of the following:  (Method B is strongly preferred)
  • Method A. (Discouraged)   After the user submits their data in your online survey, send them to a separate form in which they will input their identity code. In Qualtrics, for example, you can change the "next page" that the user is sent to after they submit their survey answers to be another Qualtrics form that will be used to collect the identity codes.  Have the user enter his or her system-assigned identity code in this separate, second, Qualtrics form that is not linked to the survey containing your research data. The second Qualtrics form must be restricted so that it can only be accessed from the link in your primary survey page (for instructions, do a web search for the words "Qualtrics Restricting What Website a Respondent Comes From"). Use the identity codes to manually grant credit to all the users who completed your survey.  If you use this method, we will have to verify it is configured correctly in Qualtrics before you are allowed to post signups.  Expect this to take an additional 1 to 4 weeks.

    [Note: The identity codes are always 5 digit numbers.  If you place a restriction or validation check on the code students enter to make sure it is a 5 digit number, that may prevent students from mistakenly using their DePaul ID number instead.]

  • Method B. (Strongly preferred)   Use the External Study Auto Credit Granting function of the Experiment Management System in the "Study URL" section when setting up the study.  It can be a little complicated to set up initially, but simple instructions for Qualtrics exist on the Sona Systems Help Pages. (There is also a video tutorial if you prefer.) Do only steps 1 and 3 (setting up the correct URL in Sona Systems and in Qualtrics) and it should work.  Skip step 2 (changing your survey flow fields in Qualtrics to include an "id" field) UNLESS you need to record the subjects' Sona Systems identity codes in your data to match up with prescreening or other data later.  Skipping step 2 will omit the identity codes from your data file when you download it.  To prevent the identity codes from being recovered later in Qualtrics, you must also delete all the responses in Qualtrics for that survey after you download your data.  This is the preferred method for granting credit for Qualtrics studies, and is the most secure and easiest to maintain once you set it up.

    There are also detailed instructions for automatic credit granting that may be useful if you are using something other than Qualtrics.

    After you set up automatic credit granting you must test it before posting for signups.  Here are the steps:
    1. In your Sona Systems researcher account, choose "change study information" and add an "Invitation Code" (password) to make sure no real participants can sign up
    2. Add a time slot
    3. Log out of Sona Systems and log back in as a "Participant" 
    4. Sign up for your study and go through it all the way to the end
    5. At the home screen of your Sona Systems participant account, click on "View other Credits I've earned"
    6. Make sure the study you just tested resulted in credit being awarded.  Look for "Credits granted on ..." and today's date.
    7. While logged in to your researcher role in Sona, go to the "View/administer time slots" panel for your study and make sure that everyone who completed the study has "Credit Granted" and NOT "Awaiting Action."  If someone completed the study but it still says "Awaiting Action" for them, then your configuration is wrong and you must fix it.
    8. If credit was not awarded, review the instructions, fix the problem and try again.

      Alternative testing method:  You can follow the instructions on the Sona Systems help pages for "Testing External Study Credit Granting Integration" and it that is successful you can then post a time slot for ONE subject.  After one subject has participated and you have verified that they were correctly awarded credit (it says "Credit Granted" and NOT "Awaiting action"), you can then post the rest of your time slots.  But PLEASE be sure it is working correctly before you post more than one or two time slots!
PRESCREENING
A demographic survey is administered each quarter during the first two weeks of class. You can restrict enrollment to your studies based on answers to one or more prescreening questions.  [Note:  If you simply need to restrict enrollment based on whether the prescreening survey was completed, the final question on the prescreening survey can be used for this purpose.  It just asks "Did you complete this survey?"]  You can also restrict access based on participation in other studies. Both of these options are available to all researchers within the Experiment Management System.
 
If you need to include additional screening questions or measures, you should create an online study in the Experiment Management System with the questions you want to include in prescreening.  Be sure you remember to include the option of declining to answer for each question - if you do not, your additional measures cannot be included in prescreening.  Call your survey something like "2014 Fall prescreening items for (your name here)."
 
After creating your online survey in the Sona Systems web site, email the Research Participant Coordinator and request that your survey be added to the prescreening survey for the following quarter.  Be sure to clearly identify the online survey that you want included. Only surveys that have already been created in the Experiment Management System can be included in prescreening - Qualtrics surveys or other external Web surveys can not be included.  Also please indicate how you will use the questions to restrict access to a study.
 
As for any other study, prior IRB approval is required.  Note that the IRB must specifically approve collecting data through prescreening:  Your IRB protocol must specifically identify the exact questions you plan to include, and must state that you plan to include them in the "Intro Psych Prescreening Survey."  Include a copy of your IRB approval memo when you email us your request to include questions in prescreening.
 
The Prescreening survey generally should NOT be used to simply collect survey data; Prescreening is for questions that will be used to restrict participation in a study to certain groups based on their answers to Prescreening questions.  In your email to the Coordinator please include a description of how your prescreening questions will be used to select participants and for which study.  If your questions are not being used to select participants for a study this quarter, they probably can not be included in Prescreening - use a stand-alone survey as a separate study instead.  Exceptions will need to be approved by the Subject Pool Manager.  When deciding which measures to include in the Prescreening survey, we will apply the following priorities:
  1. The total length of the Prescreening Survey should be 30 minutes or less, including the department's demographic questions and all researcher-submitted questions.
  2. Small sets of questions (1 to 5) that will be used to restrict who can sign up for a study will receive the highest priority.
  3. Standard published scales that will be used to restrict who can sign up for a study will also be included if there is room.
  4. If the Prescreening Survey is still under 30 minutes long, short (less than 5 minute) surveys that are simply for data collection may be included.
  5. Requests received less than one week before the beginning of classes may be too late for consideration if the Prescreening Survey is already full.  Two or three weeks before classes begin is a safer margin.
By default, only the standard demographic survey is carried over to the next quarter's prescreening. If you had a survey included in the previous quarter's prescreening and wish to have it included again this quarter, you must request it. Clearly identify the survey that you want carried over to the next prescreening so that the coordinator knows which section of the prescreening to re-use.
 
Be sure to download the prescreening data that you need for your research before the quarter ends. At the end of each quarter, all prescreening data may be deleted from the system in preparation for the next quarter's prescreening session.
 
ELIGIBILITY   
Use of the Intro Psych Subject Pool for data collection is restricted to DePaul Psychology Department faculty and students working under their supervision.
 
RECRUITING POLICY   
Direct recruiting of research participants in Intro Psych classes is strictly prohibited when the Psychology Subject Pool is operating (currently fall, winter and spring quarters). Researchers may not announce their study in class, through emails, handouts, flyers, etc. ALL participant recruiting of Intro Psych students must be done through the online Research Participation System, and no credit, extra credit, or payments may be made to Intro Psych students for research participation except as administered through the Research Participation Pool system.  Other psychology classes that offer credit for research participation should also use the Sona Systems web site for recruitment and signups. 
 
Applicability:  All sections of Psy 105 and Psy 106 during the fall, winter, and spring quarters, including online and evening sessions.  Other psychology courses that offer students credit for research participation during the fall, winter, and spring quarters.  The subject pool does not operate (and the research participation requirement does not apply) for summer or intersession classes.
 
CONTACTS   
For routine, administrative, and operational requests and questions, contact the Research Participant Coordinator at: psychexperiments@depaul.edu
For questions about Subject Pool policies, or if the Coordinator has not responded to your email within 2 days, contact the Research Participation Pool Manager, David Allbritton. 

Experiment Management System

Use the Experiment Management System for scheduling experiments and reporting credits earned.

Additional Information
Prescreening Survey
Alternative Paper Option ​