UQ Psychology Research

Study survey URLs may now be added onto the SONA system as online studies.

To add your SONA survey URL to SONA, timeslots need to be added to the study so that students can sign up to participate and have the credit assigned.

The online set up also allows credits to be assigned automatically if using Qualtrics instructions can be found on the UQ Psychology Research site at:

• Assign credit automatically in Sona when using Qualtrics

Step 1: Create

Select Create a new study under Add New Study

Step 2: Study Type

Select the Study type > Online External Study and then Continue

Step 3: Basic Study Information

Add the Basic Study Information (i.e., Study name, Brief Abstract, Detailed Description etc).

Step 4: Advanced Settings

Under the Advanced Settings section of the screen:

Add in the Study URL ( Note: For online studies, it is possible for credits to be assigned automatically when using Qualtrics. To set this up, refer to the information available on:

• Assign credit automatically in Sona when using Qualtrics

Complete all the relevant fields and then Add this study.

Make sure that you submit the study for approval (Send Request) this will generate an email notification to the SONA system administrator to approve the study.

Step 5: Adding timeslots

Students will still need to sign up to the study to access the Study URL. Once the study is created, add the timeslots.

Click on the Study Menu > View/Administer Time Slots.

Click on Add a Timeslot and complete the fields.

Click on Add This Timeslot.

Step 6: Assigning Credits

If you have set up the study to grant credits automatically for online studies (see Assign credit automatically in Sona when using Qualtrics) – you do not need to manually allocate credits

Wait for the participation deadline of the study before you take any further action.

If your study is not set up to grant credits automatically:

Once students have completed the study, click on My Studies > View Your Uncredited Timeslots

Under the Action column > check Grant Credit against the applicable participant OR check > Mark all Participated and then Process Changes.

Qualtrics has a feature which allows participants to save their progress and resume at a later point. This seems like a good idea but is nearly always a bad idea. You should never enable this feature without considering the issues below:

• Ineffective: this feature requires a cookie to be saved on the participants computer. As such if they clear their browser cache, use a different browser or change computer or device they will not be able to resume their survey. Offering this as an option implies that it will always work when this is not true.
• Privacy: the main issue with this feature is the potential to expose participant responses to other participants. If two participants share a computer, the first participant starts and does not complete the survey, and then the second participant starts the survey Qualtrics will assume this is the same participant and potentially expose their previous responses. A classic case where this is likely is when couples or multiple family members are completing the survey.

More Information:

• Qualtrics - Allowing Respondents to Save Progress

Step 1: Add Code to URL

Within Sona, change the Study URL so it includes the Qualtrics Anonymous Survey Link and ?id=%SURVEY_CODE%. So if the Qualtrics URL (Anonymous Survey Link) is:

• https://uqpsych.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b9ZD41hMZaqE

then you would use:

• https://uqpsych.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b9ZD41hMZaqE?id=%SURVEY_CODE%

Note: "id" must be in lower-case.

The example link above is on the domain uqpsych.qualtrics.com because this is linking directly to the Qualtrics survey. If there was a custom page before the survey you would link to that instead. For example it may have the format exp.psy.uq.edu.au instead.

Step 2: Setup Qualtrics to record Survey Code

Having completed Step 1, the Study Information on your Sona Systems site now displays a URL labeled "Qualtrics Redirect to a URL".

In Qualtrics, configure the survey to accept the survey code number, as an embedded data field named "id". Remember to use lower-case as this is case-sensitive.

To do this in Qualtrics:

1. Go to Survey Flow
2. Add a New Embedded Data Element by either clicking 'Add Below' or 'And new element here' and selecting 'Embedded Data' as the type of new element
3. Type in "id"
   
4. Save your changes

Step 3: Setup Qualtrics to redirect to Sona on survey completion

In order for Sona to register that the participant finished the survey Qualtrics must redirect to Sona on survey completion.

This is best done in the 'Survey Flow'.

To do this in Qualtrics:

1. Go to Survey Flow
2. Add a New End of Survey Element at the very end of the flow
3. Select Customize
4. Select Override Survey Options
5. Add Redirect URL
   

The Redirect URL is unique for each study and is obtained from the Study Information page and is labeled as Qualtrics Redirect to a URL. For example it may look like this:

• https://uqpsych.sona-systems.com/webstudy_credit.aspx?experiment_id=1735&credit_token=67820892f7cb4ab38f9097239ff5bf3c&survey_code=${e://Field/id}

Note that if you are using the Paid pool the address above will be 'uqpsych-p...' not 'uqpsych...'.

Step 4: Testing

This step is recommended just to check all of the above has been successful.

1. Go to the Study information page in Sona
2. Click the Sample Link with Embedded ID Code link (See image below).
   If this link does not appear, then verify you have set up the correct study type (Web Study) and the Study Status is “Online (web) Study: Administered outside the system”.
   If the study type is not correct, create a new study of the correct type (Online External Study).
   If the study type is correct, but you still do not see the “Sample Link with Embedded ID Code”, then verify you have %SURVEY_CODE% correctly in the Study URL field.
   
   
3. Complete the study as if you are a participant and you should be redirected back to a Sona page at the end.
4. Check the message displayed on the Sona site (See image below).
   When you are redirected to the Sona site, if you see the message:
   No credit given, because you are not a participant, and therefore cannot sign up for this study
   then it worked! That indicates the system received a code indicating who you are, and it realizes you are not a participant and can’t sign up for the study.
   If you see a message like Invalid Survey Code or Invalid Survey Code: -6 then you need to check the last step of the integration instructions again. Most likely, the problem is there. Remember that the redirect URL you paste in from your Sona site to your survey is unique for each study on your Sona site, so you can’t use the same redirect URL for different studies.
   
   

It is very common to want to have a start or landing page for your survey. This page will generally contain your Participant Informaiton Sheet and Consent details. This is hosted completely outside of Qualtrics or Checkbox. Once the participant Consents they are then directed to your survey.

This system has the following advantages:

• You get a much shorter and user friendly address to direct your particpants to.
• Participants who refuse to consent do not actually start the survey.
• Generally looks more professional.

Basic Start Page Example

For a simple example see this demo page:

• https://exp.psy.uq.edu.au/demo/

Please contact Paul Jackson (webmaster@psy.uq.edu.au) for help creating a start page. The minimum required to get a start page is:

• A Word Document with the content for the page. Typically this would just be your Participant Information Sheet.
• The name or address of the survey that this page will link to.
• You must also select an address. The address will be in the format 'exp.psy.uq.edu.au/abc' where the 'abc' part will be something appropriate for your research. All lowercase, no punctuation and short is best.

Finish Page

A similar page can be created as a Debrief page for after the survey if required.

Example of a simple Debrief Page:

• https://exp.psy.uq.edu.au/demo/finish

Potentially the finish page can also be used to collect data that is not linked to the actual survey data, is stored on psychology servers and as such can be user identifiable. 

Example of Student Id collection:

• https://exp.psy.uq.edu.au/demo/student

Example of Prize Draw entry:

• https://exp.psy.uq.edu.au/demo/prize

The information below is out of date and is the old method of doing this. The new method is via the 'Timing' question:

• Timing Question

Old Method:

You can delay a participant on a given page in Qualtrics by delaying the display of the 'Next' button. To do this:

• Click on a question which is on the page you wish to delay.
• Select 'Add Javscript' from the purple menu on the left.
• In the popup window make the text exactly like this:

Qualtrics.SurveyEngine.addOnload(function(){
 this.hideNextButton();
 this.showNextButton.delay(5);
});

The above would delay the page for 'Next' button for 5 seconds.

Hide Button Too

If you want to hide the Next Button and then automatically progress after 5 seconds:

Qualtrics.SurveyEngine.addOnload(function(){
 var theDelay=5;
 this.hideNextButton();
 this.showNextButton.delay(theDelay);
 var that = this;
 (function(){that.clickNextButton();}).delay(theDelay);
});

More Information...

• Qualtrics Javascript API

When exporting the data it is generally recommended that you export to CSV first and then import into your statistical package. Exporting directly to SPSS is often more problematic.

It should also be noted that when you export your data it remains on the server. Whenever you export you are basically taking a snapshot of the current dataset. As such you can download it as often as you like.

For more information about exporting data from Qualtrics:

• Qualtrics - exporting data

The Ethics Committee requires that ALL online research be hosted on our web servers with the exception of surveys hosted by Qualtrics.

This means 3rd party providers such as Survey Monkey or a friends web server cannot be used to host your web research without prior permission from the ethics committee.

Psychology has sufficient web servers and resources to host all research projects.

Email Triggers can be used in Qualtrics to send an email each time a participant finishes a survey.

For more information see:

• Qualtrics University - Email Triggers

Sometimes you need to link data from one Qualtrics survey to another or from a Qualtrics survey to an external dataset. Qualtrics uses a unique value for 'ResponseID' to identify each participant. This value can be passed out of Qualtrics at the end of the survey by passing it in a redirect address.

The text to add the current ReponseID to Qualtrics is:

• ${e://Field/ResponseID}

Note that this can only work at the end of the survey. This value is not set until the survey is finished.

For example if you wanted to redirect all participants to the pscyhology home page passing the ResponseID you would do the following:

• Open Qualtrics and Edit your Survey
• Open the 'Survey Flow' window
• Add an 'End of Survey' element to the end of the survey flow
• Select 'Customise' to change the options
• Select 'Redirect to a URL'
• Enter the URL as http://psychology.uq.edu.au/index.html (or whatever the address you want is)
• Add ?id=${e://Field/ResponseID} to the end of the address - This sets 'id' to the value of 'ResponseID' which is then passed to the address. This only works if the address in question knows what to do with the value. Normally it would be ignored.

Connect Qualtrics surveys

This can be used to pass the 'ResponseID' from one survey ot another in Qualtrics.

The address in the second last step of the steps above would be the address of the second Qualtrics survey. Then in the second Qualtrics survey you would need to add an embedded item with the name 'id' to pick up the passed value. In this canse the 'id' value in the second survey will be the same as the 'ResponseID' value in the first survey.

To access Qualtrics you need an active UQ Staff or Student account which is assigned to an appropriate User Class.

Access to Qualtrics is via:

• research.psy.uq.edu.au

If your UQ account is not assigned to a User Classes please contact webmaster@psy.uq.edu.au with the details of your association with the School of Psychology.

Go to the 'View Results' tab in Qualtrics and select the 'Responses in Progress' tab. Select the responses you want to convert and click 'Close Responses'.

• More Information

The header image in Qualtrics can be removed by adding some Custom CSS into the survey. To learn how to add Custom CSS see:

• Qualtrics - Survey Style - Add Custom CSS

The custom CSS to remove the headers is as follows:

    html .Skin #LogoContainer { display: none; }

Note that the header is not actually removed but only hidden.

Change Header Text

To change the header text to 'New Text':

    html .Skin #Logo::before { content: 'New Text' !important; }

Qualtrics allows you to share a survey with another Qualtrics user. In Qualtrics this is termed collaboration. 

Collaboration can sometimes be a little tricky to get working. 

Collaboration within the School of Psychology

You can find the option to collaborate in the Tasks menu of the My Surveys page:

Next you will be presented a window allowing you to search the Qualtrics address book.

Finding other Users

It is very important to note that Qualtrics only knows about Psychology users how have already logged into Qualtrics. If a user has never accessed the UQ Psychology instance of Qualtrics you will never find them.

Finding other users can sometimes be a bit tricky. You can search based on first name. For example 'fred':

Or if you know their UQ Username you can try using that. For example to search for the username 'aaafred':

If you know the users email you can try that. Note that this will only find the email address that Qualtrics has and not all of the versions of their email address. Students are typically in Qualtrics with an email in this format 's1234567@student.uq.edu.au'. To search for the email address 'fred@psy.uq.edu.au':

Or if none of the above works you can click on the 'User and Group Address Book' link to browse the entire Address Book. This can be pretty slow given the number of users we have in Qualtrics. It allows you to scroll through a list of all users (50 a a time):

If after trying all of the above you still cannot find the user it is important to remember that the user may not actually be in Qualtrics. An account in Qualtrics is not created until the user logs in at least once.

More Information...

For more informaiton about collaboration options and how to collaborate with users who are at other institutions see this help from Qualtrics:

• Qualtrics University - Collaboration

Access to Qualtrics is restricted to UQ Accounts that have some known association with the School of Psychology.

If your UQ Account has a valid assocaition with the School of Psychology you can access Qualtrics from here:

• research.psy.uq.edu.au

Note that you must be logged in to access Qualtrics.

I have logged in but cannot access Qualtrics

If you can log into the Psychology web site but still cannot get to Qualtrics this is normally caused by either of these two things:

1. Incorrect Username: You may have more than one UQ Account, for example a staff account and a student account. The Psychology system may only associate one of these accounts with Psychology. Make sure you use the correct one.
2. Incorrect User Classes: Your assocaition with the School of Psychology is handled by use of User Classes. Your user class should reflect your current role within the school.

To confirm that you are logging in with Psychology Credentials and what user classes you are a member of please go to the Staff page:

• staff.psy.uq.edu.au

On the first tab of this page it should say:

• 'You are currently logged in with the username s1234567.' 
• 'You are a member of the following User Classes: Class1, Class2.'

If it doesn't show you as belonging to any valid user classes then you will not be able to access Qualtrics. Note that not all user classes have access ot Qualtrics.

If your think your User Classes are incorrect or if you are having other problems accessing Qualtrics please contact:

• webmaster@psy.uq.edu.au

There is currently no easy or foolproof way to link MTurk participants to a Qualtrics result set.

The way that has been somewhat successful for many researchers is to show a random number to the participant and get them to paste the number into MTurk when they have finsihed the survey.

Add a Random Number Embedded Value

• Create an Embedded Vaue in 'Survey  Flow'.
• Set an embedded data value named 'MTurkCode' and assign it the value of  '${rand://int/10000000:99999999}'

This generates an 8 digit random number and assigns it to the value 'MTurkCode'. This value will be recorded in your dataset. 

[For exact details of random numbers see: http://www.qualtrics.com/university/researchsuite/articles/random-number-generator/]

Show Number to participant at the end of the survey

Add a text question at the very end of the survey with somethign like the following:

Please copy the 8-digit number that appears below and paste it into Mturk to receive your payment.

One of the methods Survey Sampling International (SSI) uses to minimise the risk of fraudulent response is referred to as High Security End Links. Setting up Qualtrics to work with SSI High Security End Links involves three steps:

• Adding Embedded Data Values to gain access to the unique values passed from SSI to your survey.
• Optionally sanity checking the data and aborting if necessary.
• Adding an End of Survey Element to redirect participants back to SSI (via the Survey Complete link) on the completion of the survey.

Adding Embedded Data Values

Embedded data in Qualtrics is used to record and access the unique values passed from SSI to your survey. Embedded Data is added into the Survey Flow of your survey in Qualtrics. The Embedded Data block should be the first section in Survey Flow.

You will need to add an Embedded Data Value for each of the following:

• psid: This value will be set via the URL (i.e. passed from SSI).  
• PID: This value will be set via the URL (i.e. passed from SSI).
• SecureKey1: This value will be supplied to you by SSI and must be set in Qualtrics manually.
• SecureKey2: This value will be supplied to you by SSI and must be set in Qualtrics manually.
• high: this value is calculated within Qualtrics. You must enter the formula which is used to calculate this value manually.

The formula for high is essentially as follows:

• PID x SecureKey1 - SecureKey2

To implement the above formula for the high value in Qualtrics you must enter the details exactly as follows:

• $e{${e://Field/PID}*${e://Field/SecureKey1}-${e://Field/SecureKey2}}

The 'Set Embedded Data section of the Survey Flow for you survey in Qualtrics should look like the green part in the following screen shot.

For more information about entering Embedded Data into Qualtrics see:

• Qualtrics - Embedded Data

Add Sanity Checking for Values passed from SSI

This step is optional but highly recommended. In the Qualtrics Survey Flow section create a new Branch as shown in the picture below. The branch should follow directly the Embedded Data at the top of your Survey Flow (see picture above).

Effectively the branch will become active if any of the values are not passed from SSI correctly, your SecureKeys are not entered, or if the calculation of the high value fails. The Branch has the following items:

• Embedded Data psid is Empty OR
• Embedded Data PID is Empty OR
• Embedded Data high is Empty OR
• Embedded Data high is Is Equal to 0

Branch Items

Notice the logic is all OR. This means if any of the logical items are matched then the branch will trigger. By default Qualtrics will set them up with AND. Make sure you change it.

As shown in the first image above the branch goes to a standard Block followed by an End of Survey Element. These items are only dispalyed to participants if the Branch is successful (i.e. if sanity checking fails).

The Block should contain some text indicating that the address is incorrect and should be checked. Following this block is an End of Survey Element as below.

Notice the End of Survey Element has the last two items checked. This will stop this broken survey attempt from even being recorded. If this was not done it would count as a survey completed even though the survey was not even attempted.

For more information about Branch Logic and End of Survey Elements in Qualtrics see:

• Qualtrics - Branch Logic
• Qualtrics - End of Survey Element

Complete Address

SSI requires that when somebody finishes the survey they are automatically redirected the the Complete Address. SSI will supply you with and Complete Address. The format may differ slightly but it should look somethign like this: 

• http://dkr1.ssisurveys.com/projects/end?rst=1&psid=${e://Field/psid}&high=${e://Field/high}

 * This is the address you will add to the End of Survey Element in Qualtrics.

Notice in particular values in the last part of the address after the '?'. This is referred to as the Query String. This is one way that data can be passed from one web page to another particularly across servers. Each value within the Query String has the form 'name=value' and are delimited by an '&' character. The above address has 3 name-value pairs:

• rst=1
• psid=${e://Field/psid}
• high=${e://Field/high}

The parts in italics and curly brackets, ${e://Field/psid} and ${e://Field/high}, are replaced by Qualtrics with unique numeric values for each participant as follows:

• ${e://Field/psid}: this is replaced with the Embedded Value 'psid'. This unique value is originally passed to the survey from SSI.
• ${e://Field/high}: this is replaced with the Embedded Value 'high'. This value is calculated by Qualtrics based on unique values passed to the survey from SSI.

For more information about appending embedded values to a URL in Qualtrics:

• Qualtrics - Append Information to the URL

For specific information about Query Strings and how they are used on the web see:

• Wikipedia - Query Strings

Inserting the Complete Address into Qualtrics

An End of Survey Element should be added and the very end of the Survey Flow. If it is not added at the end the survey would finish prematurely. The 'Redirect to a URL' field is filled with the address described above.

For more information about the End of Survey Element in Qualtrics see:

• Qualtrics - End of Survey Element