Integrate with SONA Systems

This page describes how to configure a new Batch of slots for participants that will be recruited through your institution's SONA recruitment site. Meadows integrates seamlessly with SONA Systems to enable participant recruitment for behavioral research studies. Start here for a more general introduction on recruitment.

Quick Start

1. Open your experiment version and go to the Participants tab
2. Click Create a new Batch.. and select the "SONA" template from the dropdown
3. Paste your SONA Completion URL in the Exit URL field
4. Configure entry variables (add survey_code to track participant SONA ID)
5. Configure exit variables (add survey_code to forward token back to SONA)
6. Set the number of slots and click Create
7. Copy the Entry URL and paste it into SONA as the Study URL
8. Enable exit page options (recommended: display exit link and auto-forward)

New to Meadows? See the Getting Started guide for a complete walkthrough.

Batch configuration

Entry URL

After you have configured and confirmed your batch, you'll enter this URL into SONA as the Study URL.

Entry variables

With these so-called query parameters you can store metadata about your participant from SONA with your Meadows data. This is required in order for the participant to report back to SONA with the Exit URL (see below).

survey_code

Add this variable to store the participant's SONA ID on Meadows.

Exit URL

Here you should paste the Completion URL from SONA. Note that this typically includes the specific domain of your institution.

Exit variables

This modifies the completion (exit) URL so that SONA knows which participant is reporting back.

survey_code

Forwards the participant's anonymous token to SONA so they can be marked as complete.

Exit page

These are features of the final page on Meadows that the participant will see when they complete your experiment:

display exit link

This will show a large green button that links back to SONA, making it easy for participants to return and complete their session.

display completion code

NOT recommended - As SONA does not use completion codes, but a participant-specific identity, this would simply display as empty.

display meadows alias

This will display the Meadows nickname (of the form adjective-animal) on the final page, which may help in your troubleshooting communication with the participant.

automatically forward to exit link

If this is selected, after 4 seconds on the "thank you" page, the participant's browser will automatically redirect them back to SONA.

Testing your configuration

You can test your configuration with the instructions on this SONA help page.