Business Research Panel (Business Sona Systems)

Step 1: First, go to the College of Business Administration Business Research Panel webpage (https://cpp-cba.sona-systems.com/). Use your existing Bronco name and password to log in to the system.

Step 2: Before you can sign up for an appointment for a specific study, you must choose the course in which you were told to participate in studies. This allows the system to keep track of the credits you earn and that information then goes to the professor of your selected course at the end of the semester. After you log in to the system as described in Step 1, you should then see your first and last name as well as your user ID and email address. Input your student identification number and telephone number in the spaces provided. After filling out this information, you must select the course for which you want your credits to be assigned to. Use CTRL key to select multiple courses, if you have more than one course. When you have finished inputting your information and selecting your course, click "Request Account." The system will then take you back to the Business Research Panel's login screen.

Step 3: In order to access your homepage where you can monitor your credits and view available studies, you must log in again using your Bronco name and password. You will also receive an email that includes information about your participant login.

To sign up for a study, login to the Business Research Panel (also called Sona System). From your Sona homepage, go to “View Available Studies.” If there are time slots available for the study you wish to take, you can sign up and participate in the study. Signing up for a study itself won’t earn you the credits; you must actually participate in the study, typically by taking the survey by either following the link provided for an online study or going to the lab if the study is conducted in the lab.

Studies take the form of in-person appointments or online appointments. In the case of the latter, the study is conducted online and the system shows you a timeslot and a deadline associated with it. For both types of appointments, you will receive an email reminder 24 hours before the appointment. It is your responsibility to cancel appointments that you cannot attend, at least 5 hours before the appointment time. If you fail to show up and do not cancel your appointment in advance, you may be held to participate in any future studies or given a penalty equal to the amount of credit offered for that study. Penalties reduce the total amount of credit earned. They also remove your previous credit assignments, so you will need to reassign all of your previously earned credits to your courses.

To remove a penalty, you may sign up for additional study. Researchers are also expected to give you advance notice if they must cancel an appointment. If a researcher cancels the appointment, no credit will be given and you should sign up for a different study (or reschedule another time for that same study). If the researcher does not show up and failed to cancel the appointment at least eight hours in advance, you will automatically be given credit for participation. Contact the System Administrator if this does not happen. Make sure your email mailbox does not become full -- important messages may be bounced by the system. Sometimes emails may be trapped in the junk email box. Make sure your email address is correct in the system. Delete mail or contact the Cal Poly help desk if you are not getting emails.

 You must assign each credit earned to a particular class. Each credit can only be counted for one course. You can change credit assignments at any time up until the Friday of Week 14, one week prior to the last Friday of the final instructional week (Week 15), as long as your instructors are okay with it. In other words, the last day to make changes to credit assignments is midnight of Friday, Week 14. We wrap up one week early to allow your instructor one week of time to incorporate your research participation score into your overall course grade prior to Finals week (Week 16). It is a good idea to check your assignments prior to Friday of Week 14, especially if you have earned any penalties, since assignments must be redone after a penalty. No changes can be made by students after Friday of Week 14.