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Booking, recruitment, & payment guidelines

Booking experiments

In order to conduct experiments in the lab, researchers or research students should follow the application process below:

  • Secure funding
    • If you are looking to use paid subjects from the ORSEE subject pool, it is each researcher's responsibility to ensure funding is sorted BEFORE applying to carry out any experiments.
  • Course Credit/myBCom points
    • If you are using course credit subjects, it is advisable to discuss requirements with the relevant contact in your school to ensure access to subjects.
    • If you wish to award myBCom points for your experiment, please ensure that you start your application early, ideally before the relevant term commences.
  • Obtain ethics approval
    • For a full review of ethics requirements and procedures in the lab, please refer to the Lab Ethics Page
  • Ensure all software & hardware requirements are in place
    • Before booking any lab times, it is required that all software and hardware requirements are organized and tested in advance.
    • If you have specific hardware or software requirements in the lab, contact the Lab Manager (bizlab@unsw.edu.au) first. You will then be directed to the relevant IT technician for expert advice.
  • Reserve study times at the lab
    • Check the Lab Calendar to view vacancies.
    • Be aware that we support two (2) labs at present:
      • Lab 1. QUAD1041 (the main lab with 35 partitioned work stations)
      • Lab 2. QUAD1042a
        • A smaller lab with 13 workstations
        • Lab 2 also includes a range of devices for physiological testing including eye-trackers, EEG, heart-rate monitors and GSR equipment.
        • Lab 2 can also handle bespoke requirements for specific studies that may involve subject movement, flow/traffic paths, retail settings, or studies involving small group interactions.
    • Once everything is in place, email the Lab Manager (bizlab@unsw.edu.au) the Booking Request Form (Please download the form). Bookings must be made 3 to 4 weeks in advance of the first session.
  • Organize recruitment of subjects for the study
    • When booking lab time, discuss the recruitment needs with the Lab Manager. Generally, relevant information would include:
      • Total number of subjects required for the study.
      • Number of subjects per session, and any reserves
      • Any defining requirements for subjects (e.g., age, gender, nationality, language, degree type, and course requirements)
    • Once the information is supplied, the Lab Manager will handle recruitment of subjects via the ORSEE subject pool. If you are using course credit subjects, you should discuss recruitment with the relevant contact from your school.
    • Be aware that you may not always attract enough participants to fill up each of your experimental sessions. Also, not all participants who have registered will show up for your experiment session (see No Shows). You should plan to run the lab session even if you do not have full capacity on the day.
    • Participant invitations are sent about a week prior to the scheduled sessions to allow ample time for participants to sign up and therefore minimize cancellations. Cancelling a session should be avoided to the greatest extent possible. If a session is cancelled, you will need to send emails to all those who registered to inform them of the cancellation. Preferably, participants should also be contacted by phone. Regardless of the reason for cancelling a study, the researcher is expected to go to (or arrange to send someone to) the lab at the time the session was scheduled, to pay the show-up fee to those who do arrive on time.
    • You will receive an email 24 hours before the start of your experiment notifying you that registration has closed. You will also receive a list of participants for each session. However, occasionally participants cancel their registration at the last minute and the lab manager will attempt to fill this position before the start of your session. For this reason, please print your participation lists (from within ORSEE) just before the start of your session to ensure that you have the most up to date list.

Guidelines for subject payments

  • Participants drawn from the lab subject pool should be paid in cash for participating in your study. If you would like to do something different, then please discuss with the Lab Manager. Researchers must provide their own funds, including change. Note that subjects recruited from other approved subject pools may be paid for their participation in course credit as an example.
  • Regardless of the specifications of your ethics protocol, participants recruited from the lab subject pool that show up on time must receive a show-up fee of at least $5. This fee might be included in the experiment payments, which ensures that participants must earn at least $5 for participating in your study. Lab conventions are that participants receive a show-up fee of $5 plus an average payment of $22 per hour of participation.
  • Participants should be compensated when a study is unable to be completed due to computer, network, or software problems, disruptive participants, or other unforeseen situations. It may be appropriate to pay participants more than the show-up fee, if problems arise after they have been seated or if problems occur when the session has already begun. In the latter case, try to compensate them with the expected average payment of your experiment, discounted for the time actually spent in the lab. Be careful with rounding, it might have an undesired effect on incentives.
  • Note that large payments to single individuals (e.g. larger than $80 or $100) may require more than a simple receipt like the lab receipt. Please check with the administrative financial officer in your school.

 
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