In the psychology department, a new system introduced just this year is proving to be highly useful for students and faculty conducting research and surveys on the Capital campus. This new technology is called Sona,
“Sona is an online research management system,” Stephanie Wilson, assistant professor of psychology, said
“Sona can be used to schedule and manage research participants and research studies. Researchers (both students and faculty) can post their studies on the system and potential participants can access the system to see what research participation opportunities are available,” she said
Capital is the most recent university to begin using the Sona service. Other universities across Asia and Europe as well as elsewhere in North America have all taken advantage of the service, which is based out of Estonia.
“The Sona system centralizes recruiting and tracking of research participation,” Wilson said. “This minimizes the need to use class time for recruiting and conducting studies. It also makes it easier for faculty to keep track of research participation credits earned by their students.”
Andrea Karkowski, professor of psychology, expanded a bit on how this service can be used within students’ specific majors.
“Specific classes, for example, Psych 110 and 350, SoSci 210 and 220, within a couple of majors (for example psychology and social work) have a research experience requirement, and one way that students can fulfill the requirement is to be a research participant, Karkowski said, “Other ways of fulfilling the requirement include attending research talks and reading the research literature.”
“Students can log onto Sona and volunteer for research studies,” Karkowski said.
Sona pulls from average Capital students and asks for their compliance with research questions compiled by other students conducting surveys. This works to eliminate in-class surveys given to many students.
“Student researchers now have a systematic way to recruit participants for their studies,” Wilson said. “They no longer need to rely on faculty to set aside class time for recruiting or data collection. Student research participants also have access to all studies posted on the system, not just studies that happen to be announced in their classes. In addition, research participants can easily keep track of the number of research participation credits they have earned.”
Sona is filling the gap for a Capital research pool from which other classes can draw, not to mention the educational opportunity available through this system.
“In general, most colleges and universities have some kind of a Human Subjects Pool so that students who conduct empirical research with human participants can have subjects for their studies, and faculty that want students to understand different facets of research can have students participate in research for their classes,” Karkowski said.
The online service was purchased for the psychology department, but according to Wilson, it’s usage may expand throughout the school.
“Although the Sona System was purchased by the psychology department, the license allows the system to be used in departments across the campus,” Wilson said. “Therefore, it is likely that other departments who use undergraduate students as research participants will eventually participate in the system as well.”
