Using Sona Systems

Sona is an online platform used by many universities and institutions around the world to recruit participants for research studies. The BRL has its own Sona site where members of our participant pool can view and sign up for studies offered by our researchers. Once you have a Sona account, you will also receive email notifications regarding currently available studies and your upcoming study appointments.

For step-by-step instructions on how to use Sona, please watch this video tutorial.

This situation may occur due to one of the following reasons:

• No studies are being conducted at the BRL.
• There are studies being conducted at the BRL, but all open slots have been taken by other participants.
• There are studies being conducted at the BRL, but you have been disqualified from those studies based on your prescreen survey responses (see the FAQ entry below) or participation history (e.g., whether you completed similar studies in the past).
• Your Sona account has been “limited” because you have accumulated three or more unexcused no-shows.

All participants must complete a prescreen survey before they can sign up for studies on Sona. In this survey, participants are asked to provide basic demographic information for future screening purposes.

While many of our studies are open to everyone in our participant pool, some researchers may wish to recruit participants with certain demographic characteristics (e.g., members of a particular age group). In such cases, researchers may make their studies visible only to participants who provided certain responses in the prescreen survey.

You may decline to answer any of the questions on the prescreen survey, but please understand that this may affect your chances of becoming eligible for future studies.

As a participant, you will receive emails from mitbrl-admin@sona-systems.net regarding your login information, study sign-ups, study cancellations, upcoming appointments, and so on. BRL staff members will also use this email address to send out regular announcements about currently available studies.

If you are not receiving these types of emails, it may be due to one of the following reasons:

• You entered the wrong email address when creating your Sona account. Please go to “My Profile” after logging into Sona to verify that your email address is correct.
• The email account you are checking is not the one listed on your Sona profile.
• The emails are in your spam folder. If this is the case, please configure your spam filter to accept future emails from mitbrl‑admin@sona‑systems.net.

It is very important that the contact information listed on your Sona profile is accurate and up-to-date. To change your email address or phone number, please go to “My Profile” after logging into Sona. You may also change your account password, but not your User ID (username), under “My Profile”. If you would like to modify your User ID, please send an email to lab-manager@mit.edu.