Sona Systems FAQs for instructors

• Does the system email me when a student does extra credit?

  You have to log in and view your course report. Here's how:

  1. Log in to Sona using your AccessID, e.g. xx0000 (not your email name). If you don't have an account, Pam Letkowski (pamela.letkowski@wayne.edu) can set one up for you. Be sure to tell her what kind of account (i.e. Instructor) you need.
  2. Click "Course Reports" to see a list of courses associated with your name.
  3. Click "All Participants" (the completed/not completed distinction makes no sense for WSU because we don't have an official requirement or cap).
  4. The far-right column shows how many credits have been assigned to this class by each student.
• What information about Sona system should be in my syllabus?

  Sorry to contribute to syllabus bloat, but see below for the recommended sample language to copy/paste into your syllabus. Also, get in the habit of telling participants to log in to Sona through our department site, go.wayne.edu/sona. This takes them to the FAQ page first, and the more times they see that page, the better (we hope).

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  Sample syllabi language

  All Wayne State University psychology research experiments are accessed via an online system called Sona. To use this system, you must enroll yourself as a user.

  Visit go.wayne.edu/sona to get begin. You should return here and read the Participant FAQ page, but for now, click "Log in to the Research Participation System (Sona)" to be taken to the Sona homepage for log-in. Click “Request an account here” located in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. You will then be prompted to enter some basic information about yourself. You will also be asked to submit an “AccessID@wayne.edu” email address. You MUST use your WSU AccessID (e.g., af0000) email address for this. If you have not yet activated your AccessID, you will need to do so (everyone is automatically issued one of these, but you must log on to activate it BEFORE requesting an account from Sona).

  Once completed, you will be able to access the site. After you have logged in the first time, you will be prompted to participate in an online experiment titled “Mass Screening”. You will receive 0.5 credit for participation in this online survey. You can opt-out of this survey, but fewer experiments will be available to you if you do.

  Each experiment will have details about what it entails, along with how many credits you will receive for participating. Instructors will have more information about how many credits (through participation in psychology experiments or other tasks) are required for the course or will be allowed for extra credit.

  When you are looking at the full list of experiments that you are eligible for, simply click an experiment, and the information will be displayed about the length of the study, what the study entails, and where you meet for this study. You will also need to decide which class you want the extra credit to count for.

  Warning: All psychology classes are listed (the box expands to show more choices) but not all allow students to receive extra credit. It is your responsibility to make sure that the class you choose does indeed allow extra credit.

  If you choose to participate YOU MUST click on "view available time slots," and register for a timeslot that fits in your schedule. You cannot simply show up at a time without having registered for that timeslot. If you need to cancel the time you have signed up for, you must log in to the system and cancel your time as many hours in advance as required by the particular experiment (often it is 24 hours but this time can differ by experiment so make sure to note this information when signing up). Failure to do so will be counted as a “no show”.

  AFTER TWO “NO SHOWS”, YOUR ACCESS TO THE SYSTEM WILL BE BLOCKED, AND YOU WILL NOT ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY FURTHER EXPERIMENTS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SEMESTER.

  When you sign up for an experiment, write down the date, time, and place of the experiment and the experimenter's name and telephone number (including a telephone number where messages can be left for the experimenter). The staff in the Department of Psychology do not keep track of experiment times and places, so you cannot call them to get this information if you forget to write it down.

  Most Sona-related questions can be resolved by going to the psychology department Sona page at go.wayne.edu/sona.

  Then you can choose Participant FAQs and look for your question. It will also tell you what to do in the unlikely event that your question is not listed.

• Why doesn't the course I'm teaching appear on my screen?

  It got assigned to someone else, either by mistake or by design.

  If you teach a lecture of either PSY 1010 or PSY 3010, you will not be listed. By convention, we list those courses under the LAB section number, not the lecture. This means that you'll need to have your TAs log in and grab the course reports anytime you would like to have the information.

• When is it safe to do my once-and-for-all course reports for the semester?

  Students can reallocate and shuffle their credits as often as they'd like, up until noon on study day. They are locked out at that time, and so it is safe to do your last check of the course reports for the semester. Your time window begins at noon on study day and lasts for one week. During this time, you should save your course reports to your hard disk (they'll be in .csv format, which Excel can read). You may or may not want to print them.

  We very strongly advise that you do a dry-run about two to three weeks prior to study day. Errors occur every semester in nearly every class. They are easy to fix prior to study day and impossible to fix later.

• A student believes they should be on my course report and they're not.

  The student messed up the course or section assignment. You cannot fix this – the student must do it, and (obviously) it must be before study day.

• A student appears in my course report who is not in my course.

  The student messed up the course or section assignment. You cannot fix this – the student must do it, and (obviously) it must be before study day.

• A student doesn't understand why his/her credit total is so low.

  The student messed up the course or section assignment. You cannot fix this – the student must do it, and (obviously) it must be before study day.

• A student has a complaint about the number of credits he/she earned last semester and thinks a mistake was made. Can you clear it up?

  If it's within a week of study day, send an email to psychologyinfo@wayne.edu. Otherwise, it's too late.