Instructor Information for using the Sona Systems Research Sign-up System
As an instructor Sona Systems will keep track of students in your classes that registered for studies using the Sona program. However, you will need to log in periodically and view your students' credit information.
Using your web browser or web-enabled smart phone, go to:
http://shippensburg.sona-systems.com
Each semester all General Psychology, Foundations, and RD&S classes will be automatically entered into Sona Systems. If you are offering research participation credit in upper level classes, you need to contact the Sona Systems administrator and have them manually enter your classes into the system. By default there is no minimum requirement for how many studies students must participate in throughout the semester. If you would like a minimum requirement set for your courses, please contact the Sona Systems administrator.
If you are offering research participation credit to your students it is a good practice to include general information about Sona in your course syllabus and review the basics of the web site with your classes. You can use the Guest account (userid: guest pass: guest) to log in as a student and demonstrate how the system works.
Logging In as an Instructor
Your instructor log in is slightly different than your researcher log in. Your instructor log in is your Shippensburg userid followed by an "underscore" and the word instructor (e.g. Jsmith_instructor). Your password will initially be the same as your research account password. Note that these passwords may be different from your Shippensburg email password. If you already have an account, but have forgotten your password, click on the link under the Lost Your Password? heading. If you do not have an Instructor account, contact the Sona Systems Administrator
Sona Systems Main Menu
At the main menu you can view your course reports, view a list of all available studies, and edit your profile information. It is a good idea to change your password to something that you will easily remember.
Course Reports
Under the Course Reports menu, you can view your current courses that are offering research participation credit via Sona Systems. You can view a list of all your students participated in research this semester. You can also see which students have met the minimum required credits, if there is one. If you do not have a minimum credit requirement, simply view All Participants.
When you click on All Participants you will see ONLY the students who have enrolled in your class via Sona (not every student in your class will enroll) and the research credits that they have earned. You will see how many they have earned for your class as well as how many they have earned total. If you have a minimum requirement, this will be displayed as well, otherwise the default is zero.
If students do an alternate task in lieu of a research study, you can manually assign credits to students by clicking the Grant Credit link next to their names.
Sometimes, students who are not enrolled in your class will be listed under your Course Reports. These students are most likely enrolled in another section and have mistakenly selected your section when they registered for a study. You can click on the studentsÂ’ email address and let them know that they made a mistake or you can do nothing. Generally most students figure this out on their own and they can reassign these credits on their own.
All Studies
The All Studies menu will give instructors a list of all Active studies on Sona. However, not all of these studies will be visible to students. Only studies that have Timeslots Available next to the credit indicator will be visible to students.
My Profile
Under the My Profile option you can change your password and contact information.