External Study Credit Granting with REDCap

While these instructions refer to “credit granting”, they work for both credit and paid studies. For paid studies, participation will be marked (instead of credit granted) just like with any other paid study.

Here are the basic steps, which are subject to change (since the product is controlled by REDCap):

  1. On your Sona Systems site, change the Study URL so it includes &sona_id=%SURVEY_CODE% in the URL. So if the REDCap URL (Public Survey URL) is:
    https://yourschool.edu/surveys/?s=ABCDEFG
    then change it to
    https://yourschool.edu/surveys/?s=ABCDEFG&sona_id=%SURVEY_CODE%
  2. Having completed Step 1, the Study Information on your Sona Systems site now displays a URL labeled “REDCap Redirect to a URL”. In REDCap, on the first page of your survey, configure the survey instrument to accept the survey code number, as a hidden field “sona_id”. Remember to use lower-case as this is case-sensitive. To do this, go to the instrument (survey) and choose Add New Field, as a Text Box. For Variable Name, type in “sona_id” and for Action Tags, type in “@HIDDEN”.

  3. In REDCap, go to Project Setup | Online Designer, choose the instrument, and then go to Survey Settings, and provide the REDCap Redirect to a URL value from your Sona Systems site. (You may simply copy and paste the unaltered value from Sona into REDCap). Be sure to click the radio button next to Redirect to a URL in REDCap so that the option is selected.

The Integration Testing Instructions can be found here
These features are described in the REDCap help file “How to Use Piping” which is linked from within your REDCap installation.