Experiment and Subject Management System

Experiment and Subject Management System

User Manual

Interdisciplinary Experimental Laboratory

Indiana University

The Experiment and Subject Management System automates the administrative procedures for conducting research experiments. It is developed as a web-based application using Microsoft ASP.NET at the front end and SQL Server database at the back-end.

Each authorized person is given a user ID and password to access this system. Experimenters should contact Lab Programmer Yajing Wang () to be assigned a user ID and password. Such request can be made in person or through email. After authorization, experimenters can access this system through the following URL:

http://www.polsci.indiana.edu/IEL/signup/index.aspx

Experimenters can register new experiments by clicking--Register New Experiment and Sessions link.

Register New Experiment and Sessions

This page allowsthe experimentersto register new experiments and sessions.

Begin byfilling out the experiment details and then press register button.After you have registered the details of the experiment,you will be given the options to add sessions for the experiment that you have just registered.

Experimenters are also given the opportunity to add additional sessions to existing experiments at a later time by clicking--Add Sessions to Existing Experiment link.

Add Sessions to Existing Experiment

This page allowsthe experimentertoadd additional sessions to existing experiments.

After experimenters registered new experiments and sessions. They can select subjects that suit their needs and invite them to a particular experiment/session by clicking-- Select Subjects & Send Experiment Invitation Email link.

Select Subjects & Send Experiment Invitation Email

This module automates the recruiting procedures. On the initial page, experimenters can select subjects from the database based on criteria provided. Once the subjects have been selected, a compose email button will appear that allows experimenters to send out recruitment emails with customized messages. In addition, they will also have the option to include additional email recipients besides the subjects list returned. The emailmessage willinclude time, date andsession nameof the experiment, customized message that you have tailored to the experiment and a link for subjects to register for a particular experiment session.Once subjectsfinished registration, they will receive an automatic email confirming their registration and enclosing experiment name, session name and date of theparticular session for which they have just registered.

Edit Email Note of Existing Experiments

This page allows experimenterstocomposeemail notes for new experiments or edit email notes for existing experiments. This email notecontains thebasic information regardingthe details of the experiment. After selecting an experiment that you’d like to compose email message for, an edit box will appear either blank (first time composing the email message) or containing previous message for you to edit. For contents of email message, you can refer to the Sample Recruiting Letter in Work Format posted on the index page.

Send Email Reminder

This page allowsexperimenters tosend reminder emails to registered subjects. Select the experiment and sessionfor whichyou want to send reminder emails. After your selection,you will begiven the option to compose, editand sendreminder emails.

At anytime, experimenters can check the upcoming experiment/session signup situation by clicking--View Current Signup.

View Current Signup

This page provides a list of the current experiment and sessions registered, listing names of experiments and sessions, maximum capacity of an experiment and a list of subjects who have registered forthe experiment.

At anytime, experimenters can edit the email note that contains generic information of a particular experiment which is enclosed in the email invitation by clicking--Edit Email Note of Existing Experiments.

Search Subjects

This utility allows you to search subjects based on user name, experiment name, experimenter and date of experiments. Researchers can find out a variety of information related to past experiments.

Sample Recruiting Letter in Word Format

This is HSC approved document and should be used as a guideline for the contents of recruiting message in future experiments.

Step by Step Instructions on Sending Recruiting Emails

1, You must register an experiment and at least one upcoming session of the experiment. The date of the upcoming session must be in future. To register new experiment and session, click on Register New Experiment and Sessions link. To add more sessions to an existing experiment, click on link Add Sessions to Existing Experiments.

2, You must include/edit contents of the recruiting email that you are going to send out. This can be accomplished by clicking link Edit Email Note of Existing Experiments.

At the edit email note page, a drop down list of experiments with future session dates are available for selection. Once you selected the appropriate experiment and hit submit, the next page will offer a Notes box for email note editing. This function is used to either compose a new message or edit a existing message. You can refer to the Sample Recruiting Letter provided on the index page and customize it to your needs.

A Note on formatting: Please included html markup <br<br> in between paragraphs in your email contents. This markup is used for spacing paragraphs. If you would like to bold any text contents, please enclosed the text between <b> and </b>.

3, You click on link Select Subjects & Send Experiment Invitation Email. Select subjects based on your search criteria. The search results will appear after you hit the Select button. Together, an Add Additional Email Recipients box will appear and you can add emails that you’d like to include in your recruitment email in addition to the search list. These email addresses will appear in the CC box in your email.

Once you are satisfied with the people you want to include in your recruitment email, click on the compose email button. This will take you to the Experiment Invitation page that you actually send emails out. The only thing you need to do on this page is to select the email note file from the dropdown box (file name corresponds to the experiment name) and click on the SEND button to send recruitment emails out.

4, With your recruitment emails, subjects are receiving your recruitment message and a link that they can click to register for any sessions of your experiment.

5, After the subjects register for the experiment, they will receive an automatically generated email that confirms their registration.

6, To monitor subjects registration for a particular experiment, you can click on the View Current Signup link under Utilities.