For Instructors who use SONA Credits

We encourage instructors to continue offering bonus points for SONA credits if you have in the past, or to consider adding this option for students if it could work for your class.  Offering bonus points for SONA credits does a lot to support the research and research training missions of the department for researchers who rely on human subjects for their data.

CHANGE: In the past, instructors who give bonus points for research participation have been required to offer an equivalent-effort alternative way to earn those bonus points.  The department will now provide that alternative and assign SONA credits.  SONA credits earned through experiment participation and through the alternative, with no distinction between the two, will now be included in the number of SONA credits each student has assigned to your class.

UNCHANGED DETAILS: Instructors can offer bonus points in the form of 1/2 of a percentage point added to the final grade for each SONA credit, with a maximum of 8 SONA credits (4 percentage points) allowed for one class.  Just so you know what you are offering bonus points for, students can earn a SONA credit by serving as a research participant for 30 minutes, or the alternative.  Researchers are required to include at least some educational element in their debriefing, and many provide additional information about research during an experiment.  There is a limit on the number of SONA credits students can earn for online, asynchronous experiments each semester.  A list of the number of SONA credits each student has assigned to your class will be provided to you shortly after the end of classes, or you can access that information in SONA yourself at any point in the semester (though students may change which class a SONA credit is allocated to during the semester).  If it works better for your class, you also have the option of putting additional requirements on earning those bonus points (e.g., write one paragraph about your research experience for each SONA credit that will earn bonus points).

If you offer bonus points for SONA credits in your course, the specific language to include in your syllabus about SONA and the alternative assignment can be provided by the SONA Administrator.  It is also important that they know your course offers bonus points for SONA credits so that your course is included in SONA as one that students can allocate credits to.  If you are not offering bonus points for SONA credits in your course, please include a statement indicating that in your syllabus.

If you wish, here is a slide explaining the SONA extra credit that you can use in your classes (link)