Sona Instructions Participants/Students

**Summer 2021**

***The Sona Admin can be reached at uh.sona@gmail.com***

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) can be found while logged in to your account.

All crediting is done electronically. Instructors will receive an email report of the total credits you applied to
their classes at the end of each semester.

---- DEADLINE ----

Summer Session 1: August 12, 2021 at 5PM
Summer Session 2: July 8, 2021 at 5PM
Summer Session 3: July 24, 2021 at 5 PM
Summer Session 4: August 11, 2021 at 5PM
PARTICIAPNTS MUST ASSIGN CREDIT BY THESE DATES

---- 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. After pressing SUBMIT, an automatic email will be sent to you with a
special verification code and password. If you don’t see the email, 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 log in, 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 towards. Make sure you know whether research participation credit
is available in your courses, 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. Please read all
instructions carefully or you may risk missing a step that is essential to earning credit for participation.

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.

To ensure that any absences are counted as excused rather than unexcused, please contact the researcher in
advance to inform them that you will be unable to keep your appointment. If you are unable to inform the
researcher in advance because the absence is due to a situation beyond your control, please contact the
researcher within 3 days with university-approved documentation.

If you earn 2 unexcused absences, you will receive an email warning.

If you earn 3 unexcused absences, you will not be able to sign up for Sona studies for the rest of the
semester.

If you need to change the courses linked to your account, go to My Profile and click Change Courses.
If you belong to one course, the system automatically assigns all your credits to that class.
***For Summer 2021: 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. Be
specific in the information you provide: What time was the error noticed? What page is it on, or what page
were you trying to access? What is your browser type? Was there an error code? If so, what was it?
Describe the problem in detail so that your Sona Admin can help you quickly.