Human Participants Research and SONA

  

[For applying and conducting human participants research:

see the 5 STEPS PROCEDURE further down on this webpage]

 

PRIOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS PARTICIPANTS POOL / SONA

All  first-year students of the Dutch and the English bachelor programme are required to participate in research conducted within the Heymans Institute of the Department of Psychology. The online research registration system ‘SONA’ is used to present research and register student participation.

The Dutch and the English bachelor programme each have their own SONA website! Students only have access to the SONA website within their own programme.

For students in the Dutch programme, research participation is part of the course 'PSBA1-06: Wetenschap en Praktijk: Introductie (Science and Practice: Introduction) '. For students in the English programme it is part of the course 'PSBE1-11: Nature of Psychology'. Each student is required to complete 35 SONA credits in total (approximately 30 hours of participation as a human subject) to meet course requirements.

NEW: As of the academic year 2011-2012: a student may earn a maximum of 10 SONA Credits for participation in online research. The rest of the required SONA Credits has to be earned through participation in research on location ( where a student has to be present physically).

A requirement to serve as research participant is justified only if it is in the students’ interest. Justification for a research participation requirement for a given student must be grounded in its educational value to that same student.

On the other hand, participation must be protected by a set of rules concerning limitations and safeguards. For example, students’ data should as a general rule be considered strictly confidential, and if they are of a sensitive nature they should - again as a general rule - be collected anonymously (i.e., with insufficient demographic information to afford identification).

Students must be allowed to select the research projects they participate in their selves, and while not precluding in-class demonstrations that do not serve a specific research purpose, they should not be obliged to participate in, for example, a study by their instructor.

The educational value of participation should be maximized by, for example, careful debriefing and opportunities for follow-up questions.

  

APPROVAL OF THE ETHICAL COMMITTEE PSYCHOLOGY (ECP) IS COMPULSORY

All research in which human participants are involved, with or without the use of SONA, must first be approved by the Ethical Committee Psychology (ECP) (see the website of the ECP, click here: ECP ). Count on a period of 10 working days average (in most cases two weeks) for a response to your request for approval.

It is assumed that all researchers are familiar with and abide by the ‘Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct’. If you are not, see the professional code for psychologists at the website of the Netherlands Institute of Psychologists, http://www.psynip.nl/ .

 

ACADEMIC YEAR 2011-2012: PUTTING YOUR EXPERIMENTS ON THE SONA WEBSITE 

From about half of September 2011 you can put your SONA experiment(s) (that have been approved by the ECP) online on the SONA website (see the 5 steps below for how to get a study online).

During the summer holidays (July and August) all tests and all participants of the closing academic year are removed from the SONA website, and SONA is closed, just like in previous years. 

Closing date for SONA for the academic year 2011-2012 is Monday July 2, 2012. This means that from that date you can no longer use the data gathered from online tests, unless you have downloaded the data yourself in an earlier stage!

 

OFFERING SONA-EXPERIMENTS WITHIN THE DUTCH AND/OR THE ENGLISH BACHELOR PROGRAMME 

At the ECP-SONA Application Form you may indicate your choice to offer your experiments in the subject pool of the Dutch programme, the English programme, or both.

 

LANGUAGE USED IN COMMUNICATION WITH STUDENTS

Note that all communication with students about your experiment should be in the Dutch or English language, respectively, of course depending of which subject pool you are working with: the Dutch or the English. For example, it is not permitted to describe or advertise for experiments in the German language.

 

SONA ONLINE OR ON LOCATION

Questionnaires can easily be created and offered online in SONA (see the 'SONA Manual for Researcher and PI' for the procedure, click here: SONA Manual for Researcher and PI [DOCX]). For research which requires the actual presence of a student (research ‘On Location’) SONA is used to make appointments with the students, track participation, and grant SONA Credits.

 

EXTERNAL ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRES VIA SONA

It is possible to link to external online questionnaires via SONA. In SONA this is called an ‘External Online Study’ (see the 'SONA Manual for Researcher and PI' for the procedure). However, this method is not recommended because it complicates registration of participants and earned credits. External online questionnaires with use of the SONA website can be set up if the research includes participants other than (or in addition to) first-year psychology students. In this case the study is offered twice: (1) online via SONA for the first-year students who get SONA Credits for participating, and (2) via a link in SONA for other participants.

 

HOW TO GET A SONA ACCOUNT

First you have to ask approval from the ECP for your participants research (via the ECP-SONA Application Form), and after that you will receive information from the Administrator about your SONA account. 

SONA ‘Principal Investigator’ accounts (only for members of the Heymans Institute for Psychological Research [HI] of the Department of Psychology) can be requested via the ECP-SONA Application Form (fill out the form, send it as an attachment (WORD file) to an email to the ECP, and you will receive an answer with the info of your SONA account). 

Lecturers, bachelor- and master students, or research assistants, can apply for a SONA ‘Researcher’ account; in that case the supervisor will then be designated Principal Investigator (PI) (this supervisor / PI must be a member of the Heymans Institute) and will be responsible for the research (the supervisor has to send a 'supervisie-email', see Step 2 of the procedure below).

 

ASSIGNING PENALTIES IN SONA FOR ’NO SHOWS’

If a student does not show up for an experiment ‘On Location’, a penalty of 1.0 SONA credit should be given (this will result in 1.0 credit being added to the 35 credits already required). No penalty is given if the student cancels the appointment within the time period designated on SONA, or if circumstances beyond the student’s control prevented attendance. Penalties are never given in online experiments.

 

EFFECTIVE PERIOD TO CONDUCT SONA RESEARCH

Because many students finish their experiment participation requirement in the course of the academic year, it is wise to offer your study as soon as possible in the academic year. From experience we know that many students have earned their required SONA Credits by the middle or end of May .

NOTE: It is recommended that you do not set up your experiment on the SONA website right before or during the examination period, because only few students will subscribe then!

 

 

  

Use of the Participants Pool brings with it rights and responsibilities for researchers.

 

Your rights are protected by applying the same standards to all researchers:

 

* A set number of SONA Credits is awarded to the student for participation in experiments based on the time taken to complete the experiment (including travel time, if relevant).

 

* A participant who does not show up for an experiment is required to gain one extra SONA Credit on top of the required number of 35.

 

Your responsibilities are:

 

* To obtain ECP approval for your experiment and not to deviate from what you have said to the ECP you will do while conducting the experiment.

 

* To obtain written informed consent from each participant.

 

* To provide participants with a written debriefing and the chance to pose questions or discuss the results of the experiment.

 

* To handle data in a responsible way.

NOTE 1: It is also your responsibility to ensure that any student (or other person) conducting an experiment under your supervision, follows the rules for using the Participants Pool!

 

NOTE 2: The Participant Pool may NOT be used for Research Practicum projects (Ba2-09)!

 

 

Point of attention in advance:

Please, count on a period of 10 working days average (in most cases two weeks) between the time of mailing your application to the ECP, and the moment you will effectively being able to conduct your research - with or without the use of SONA (this has to do with the time the ECP and the Administrator need to assess and handle your application).
 

 

STEP 1. Researcher asks approval from the Ethical Committee Psychology (ECP) for human participant research

The form that is used to ask permission of the ECP to conduct research, is the same form (if intended) to get access to the participants pool and SONA (click here to download the form: ECP-SONA Application Form English version [DOC] or the ECP-SONA Application Form Dutch version [DOC]).

The completed (!) form (WORD file) should be sent as an attachment to an email to ecp@rug.nl.

 

STEP 2. (If necessary) The Principal Investigator sends ‘supervisie-email’ to sona.gmw@rug.nl

If the research will not be conducted by a member of the Heymans Institute but by another person (e.g. a student), the Principal Investigator (who is the responsible researcher) is required to send a so-called "supervisie-email" to sona.gmw@rug.nl. If you do not send such an email, your application will be delayed!

The supervisie-email has to contain the following text:

 

I, NAME PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, give permission to NAME OTHER PERSON(S) to conduct research with human participants, entitled TITLE RESEARCH, and declare to supervise this research and to take responsibility.

If applicable : The day-to-day supervision of the researcher(s) will be done by NAME PSYCHOLOGY MEMBER under my supervision.

 

STEP 3. Researcher receives an email with the ECP approval and a study code (and if applicable: login information for SONA and the number of SONA credits to be awarded)

After the ECP has approved your study, the ECP sends it to the (SONA) Administrator who will inform you about it by email, and will give your study a study code. Count on a maximum period of 10 working days - approximately two weeks - for a response to your request for ECP approval.

If you are not going to use SONA Systems, you may conduct your research now (so, after Step 3).  

 

STEP 4. Only for SONA research : Researcher sets up his/her study on one of the two (or on both) SONA websites

If you plan to use SONA, you will also receive information about the number of SONA credits that you may give the participant after participation. In case that you used the ECP-SONA Application Form to apply for a SONA account, you will also receive personal login information for your SONA account. With this information you can log in on the SONA website (for the Dutch human subject pool: http://rug.sona-systems.com and for the English human subject pool: http://rug-en.sona-systems.com). With the SONA login information you are able to set up your study on one of the two (or on both) SONA websites. For those studies that need the actual presence of the participants (research ‘On Location’), SONA offers the possibility of creating ‘timeslots’. It is important that you indicate, while setting up your test in SONA, that a student can only participate once in the same test.

SONA credits are awarded in units of 0.1 credits, where 0.1 SONA credit is equal to 5 minutes of participation or travel time. For research ‘On Location’ the SONA Administrator will indicate to you that you may give extra credits for the extra time a participant needs to travel. 

Travel time and n umber of extra SONA credits:

GMW buildings (2 x 2.5 min.): 0.1 extra

UMCG (2 x 15 min.): 0.6 extra

Zernike buildings (2 x 20 min.): 0.8 extra

Bloemstraat (2 x 10 min.): 0.4 extra

 

STEP 5. Only for SONA research : Researcher asks for a ‘FINAL APPROVAL' via the SONA website

After you have set up your research/study in SONA and you have made everything ready for use for the participants, you have to send a request via the SONA website to the SONA Administrator for a so-called ‘Final Approval'. Then the SONA Administrator will check if you have set up everything according the rules. After that, the SONA Administrator will give you the 'Final Approval' by making your research/study visible on the SONA website, so that participants can register for your study. Almost in every case the SONA Administrator will react to your request within 1 working day, but please count on a maximum period of 2 working days for getting this 'Final Approval' for the study you already have set up in SONA.

 

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Do you still have questions about SONA? Send an email to the SONA Administrator: sona.gmw@rug.nl

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