Sona Extra Credit
EPSY 6310
Your can earn extra credit by participating in two studies posted in SONA. For the SONA extra credit, you
must allocate the credit to this course when you sign up for the study.
You may participate in one LAB study advertised in SONA and one Survey study. Lab studies require you
to meet with researchers and participate in some kind of activity. In contrast, survey studies require you to
respond to surveys posted online, which you can do from anywhere. In this Document you will find
instructions on how to sign up for SONA (our class belongs to Summer Session 2; therefore, you must
complete your participation in SONA before July 3rd, 2014.
After participating, in a SONA study you must write a summary of your experience in the study in order to
get any extra-credit for the activity (credits given by SONA plus 1 point for the summary). In this summary,
you must include your best guess of what might have been the hypothesis of the study, the design, the
procedure and a comment about it, and what did you learn from your experience. (Please note: You do not
have to say that you learned a lot, or even a little, from participating in a study. I seriously want to know what
you got out of the experience.)
Name of the Study as it appears in the SONA website:
Hypothesis and/or research questions of the Study:
Procedure of the Lab experience or nature of questionnaires in a survey study:
What did you think about the way the study was conducted?
What did you get from the experience?
Sona Instructions Participants/Students - Summer 2014
***The Sona Admin can be reached via email at uh.sona@gmail.com***
Sona opens for participation on June 2, 2014.
Credit applied towards a course in a summer session must be allocated by 5pm on the following days.
Summer Session 1: August 12, 2014
Summer Session 2: July 3, 2014
Summer Session 3: July 17, 2014
Summer Session 4: August 12, 2014
Instructors will receive a file with the total credits you applied towards their class after each deadline.
Your account will be deactivated after the Summer Session 4 deadline until the fall semester begins.
---- FIRST-TIME SIGN-UP ---Registration
To register, go to http://uh.sona-systems.com/ and click the link on the left that says “Request an account
here.” Enter the information requested. Please use the email address that you check most often. You may
only register once, using your primary email address. If you try to register more than once, the administrator
reserves the right to remove you. Your password will be a temporary one that is 6+ alphanumeric characters,
and you can change it after your first login. After pressing SUBMIT, an automatic email will be sent to you
with a special verification code and password. If the email doesn’t come through, try checking the folder
labeled Junk Mail, Spam, or Bulk. It may take up to 60 minutes to appear. The sender of the e-mail
will show as "Research Management System."
Verification & Login
Once you have received your verification code, go to the site’s main page at http://uh.sona-systems.com.
Enter the information required.
---- FIRST LOGIN OF SEMESTER ---Home
Once you login, you will be asked to participate in a demographic questionnaire (also called a prescreen).
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. After
you complete this task, you will see the Main Menu. This page is the first page you come to after logging in.
If you would like to change your password or other information about yourself, choose My Profile from the
top toolbar.
You will also be asked to choose the courses you are currently enrolled in (multiple courses may be
selected by holding down the CTRL key (on a PC) or the Apple key (on a Mac) while clicking on the
desired course names. If you cannot find your course listed, please notify the Sona Admin at
uh.sona@gmail.com. Generally all courses should already be listed, but errors can happen.
Individual instructors set their own extra credit policies. Just because you see a class listed on Sona DOES
NOT mean your instructor will give you extra credit. When you sign up for a study, you will be asked which
class you would like to apply the credit toward. Make sure you know whether research participation credit
is available in your psychology classes, and if so, how much. Sona does not know how many credits each
instructor allows. It is your responsibility to be aware of the above.
---- USING SONA ----
At the top of the page, you will notice a link that will return you to this Home page. You will notice links to
Studies, your Schedule/Credits, your Profile, the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), and a link to Logout.
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.
Study Sign-Up
After clicking “Study Sign-Up,” or the Studies link at the top of the page, you may view studies and sign up
for those that interest you and where you meet any special requirements. You may cancel your sign-up
through the system as well.
Studies that currently have available participation times (timeslots) will have “Timeslots Available” listed
next to the name of the study. If no studies have available timeslots, you may want to login to the system a
few days later to see if new timeslots have been added.
Some studies are two-part studies, where you must sign up for both parts of the study at once, and the two
parts must be scheduled a certain number of days apart. These studies will be clearly marked.
Some studies may be online survey studies. There are two types of online studies – ones that are hosted
internally on Sona and ones that are hosted on external websites such as Surveymonkey or Qualtrics.
Instructions for participating and crediting may differ depending on the researcher, so you are encouraged to
read the study description and instructions carefully.
Click the name of the study to get more information, including available sign-up times. After reading the
experiment parameters and the informed consent information, if you meet the criteria, click the View Time
Slots link at the bottom of the page. Choose a timeslot that is convenient for you, and click Sign Up. You will
be taken to an authorization screen to confirm your selection. After you click Sign Up, you will see
information displayed confirming the time and location of the study you plan to participate in. You will then
receive an email confirmation of your appointment.
My Schedule & Credits
If you signed up for any experiments, you will see them listed here. In the list of studies, you will see
information about your credit status. Studies you have signed up for that you are allowed to cancel will
have a Cancel button next to them. If you know in advance that you cannot attend your session, please
cancel your timeslot. Once you click Cancel to cancel your sign-up, you will see a confirmation page. Click
“Yes” to cancel your sign-up, and the sign-up will be cancelled immediately. For some studies there is a time
limit before the study is to occur, when it is too late to cancel. This restriction is listed at the bottom of the
page. It is courteous to notify the researcher (NOT the Sona Administrator) if you are not able to
attend. Researchers may choose to ban no-shows from signing up again.
If you belong to one course, the system automatically assigns all your credits to that class. If you belong to
multiple courses, you may reassign a credit from one course to another. To do this, simply use the Reassign
link that appears when you view your credits. The link appears under the course entry for each item in your
progress listing and is currently only available during fall and spring semesters.
For Summer 2013: If you belong to multiple courses, you may reassign a credit from one course to
another only by contacting the Sona Administrator
---- ERRORS / BUGS ---Errors and bugs are never a desired result of the system, but they do happen. We take these matters seriously
and respond promptly. Please report anything that doesn’t look right to your Sona Administrator. Describe
the problem in detail so that your Sona Admin can help you quickly.