How to Sign Up as a Research Participant

Read carefully! Some PSY, SOC or BHS courses may offer extra credit or course credit for participating in student or faculty research projects. Cal Poly Pomona has created a human subject pool with a web-based sign-up procedure to support this important educational activity.

Signing up for studies is done on-line: http://csupomona.sona-systems.com . You can use any computer with internet access to sign up, select courses, assign credit, or change your appointments.

1. Students need to register in order to obtain a logon and password. You can do this by going to the URL above and clicking on the “New Participant” link in the lower left corner of the screen. A form will appear that requests your name and User ID. Your User ID is the first part of your Cal Poly Pomona email address. There is no need to type the remainder of the address. All users must sign up and receive messages using their Cal Poly Pomona email account. A logon and password will be sent to your email address. If you are unsure of your Cal Poly email address, you can look it up by going to the Cal Poly webpage and use People Search (lower right corner) to find your exact email address. If you enter an incorrect email address and do not receive your logon and password within a few hours, contact the system administrator by clicking on the link provided on the main logon webpage (URL above). Once your logon has been activated by using it at least once, it will remain active as long as you are at Cal Poly Pomona.
   
2. Students who have forgotten their password can have it sent to them again using the “Lost Your Password?” link on the main logon webpage.
   
3. Before you can sign up for an appointment, you must create a list of the courses you are enrolled in, so that you can assign your credits. To do this, log in, then select the “My Profile” link at the top of the screen. (Using “My Profile,” you can also change your password and enter an optional telephone number or an additional email address.) At the bottom of the profile screen there is a link that says “Change Courses”. When you click on it, a list of the available courses appears. Highlight each course you wish to select. (Use the CTRL key to select multiple courses.) Remember to click on “Update” to save your selection. Later, when you schedule appointments, you will be able to assign your credit to the courses you have selected. After you have earned credits, you can also reassign them to different courses.
   
4. To sign up for a study or experiment, click on the “Studies” link at the top of the page. You can search for studies by date (to fit your schedule), or click on “View All Studies” to see a list of all studies with available appointment times. Click on the name of the study or the “Timeslots Available” link to find out more about the study. To sign up, first select the course (just one) that you wish to assign your credit to, then click on the “Sign Up” button. Be sure to copy down the location and time of the study. (You will also be sent a reminder, but it may not contain the location, contact info or other details.) After you participate, your course instructor will be notified that you earned credit for being in that study at the end of the quarter. You will receive an email confirmation for each appointment you sign up for.
   
5. You will also receive an email reminder 24 hours before the appointment. It is your responsibility to cancel appointments that you cannot attend, at least one hour before the appointment time. If you fail to show up and do not cancel your appointment at least an hour in advance, you will be given a penalty equal to the amount of credit offered for that study. Penalties reduce the total amount of credit earned. They also remove your previous credit assignments, so you will need to reassign all of your previously earned credits to your courses. To remove a penalty, you may sign up for additional experiments. Researchers are also expected to give you advance notice if they must cancel an appointment. If a researcher cancels the appointment, no credit will be given and you should sign up for a different experiment (or reschedule another time for that same study). If the researcher does not show up and failed to cancel the appointment at least an hour in advance, you will automatically be given credit for participation. Contact the System Administrator if this does not happen. Make sure your email mailbox does not become full -- important messages may be bounced by the system. Make sure your email address is correct in the system. Delete mail or contact the Cal Poly help desk if you are not getting email.
   
6. You must assign each credit earned to a particular class. Each credit can only be counted for one course. You can change credit assignments at any time up until the last day of class during the quarter. The last day to make changes to credit assignments is midnight of the last day of classes. It is a good idea to check your assignments during the last week of classes, especially if you have earned any penalties, since assignments must be redone after a penalty. No changes can be made by students during Finals week or after instruction has ended. This time is needed to prepare reports for instructors so that they can calculate student grades.
   
7. Select the “My Schedules/Credits” link from the top of the page to review your scheduled appointments, change course selections, change credit assignments, and change or cancel appointments.

IMPORTANT:

As a participant in psychological or sociological research, you have the right to leave a study at any time if you wish to do so, without penalty. If you object to participation, or if there is a shortage of studies posted during the quarter, your instructor will provide you with an alternate assignment or way of earning credit.