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General
protocol
The UAA lab is open to faculty from any UAA
department and is also open to faculty from other Universities. The lab will
make every effort to accommodate your particular software choice.
While the lab is open to researchers from a
variety of disciplinary perspectives and is very flexible in allowing faculty
researchers to determine appropriate protocol, we require the following:
1. No deception
2. Subjects should be
paid in cash at the end of the experiment, unless such payments are restricted
by other University rules.
3. Recruited subjects
turned away on the day of the experiment should receive some monetary
compensation.
Running
a paid research experiment:
UAA lab staff can assist in subject recruitment,
scheduling, basic record keeping, and technical assistance during an
experiment. Here are few simple procedures that will facilitate a smooth and
successful experiment.
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1. Approval:
UAA
IRB Approval
All experiments run
in the UAA lab must show evidence of UAA Institutional Review Board approval -
even if you are a researcher from another University and have received IRB
approval at your home institution. Faculty needing to receive such approval
should go to the UAA IRB web page (click here) and follow the procedures
specified in order to have your experiment approved. This process can take as
long as 4-6 weeks so be sure to start early. Also note that UAA IRB approval
must be renewed each year.
Please email Lance
for a sample IRB form. Note that the lab has IRB approval for general subject
recruitment and you can mention you will follow approved protocol in your
request.
Experimental
Lab Approval
Experiments
run in the lab will also need our approval. Please submit a summary of the
general research design (to elhowe at uaa.alaska.edu) prior to submitting the
IRB request. Your proposed research design will be reviewed by an experimental
economics lab committee.
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2. Scheduling:
A NEW Experiment
To schedule a NEW experiment
please email elhowe at uaa.alaska.edu about two weeks prior to a planned
experiment. If not already on file, please also email a copy of your
approved IRB application.
If your
experiment is new or you have made major changes, plan on you and/or
your programmer meeting with a lab assistant to perform a trial run of
your software about one week before the date of the planned experiment.
We will
recruit based on parameters you provide and that have been approved by the
IRB.
An
Ongoing Experiment
To
schedule a session for an experiment that has already been run in the lab,
you can LOG-IN
to the researchers home page and schedule the experiment.
Alternatively, email elhowe at uaa.alaska.edu and we will do it for you.
You can check the calendar to make sure the date is open. Please
also contact the lab assistant to make sure the timing fits with his/her
schedule.
Depending
on the time of the year, recruitment should start at least three days prior to
the start of the experiment. Overbooking by about 50% is usually needed
(more during exam weeks).
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3. Requesting cash: Individual researchers
can follow the guidelines below or on request the lab director can make the
request on your behalf.
CBPP
Account: If you are requesting money from a
CBPP account fill out the internal
“experiment petty cash request” form developed by the CBPP Dean’s
office. Submit this form to Debbie Risch (786-1916; aycee at uaa.alaska.edu). This form should be
submitted at least 10 working days before the planned start date of experiments.
On the form indicate the amount requested, an account to charge, and a closure
date (the date that all funds are accounted for with Debbie). As long as cash
is stored in the CBPP safe, the accounting office will allow large requests
with long time lags. However, all incentive payments must be accounted for
before June 30 of each year.
Other UAA account: Ask administrative staff to submit a petty
cash request to Martha Nelson in accounting. Note in the request that you
are requesting petty cash to run an experiment and indicate the amount
requested, an account to charge, and a closure date (the date that all funds
are accounted for with your administrative assistant). As long as cash is
stored in the CBPP safe, the accounting office will allow large requests with
longer time lags. However, all incentive payments must be accounted for before
June 30 of each year.
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4. Getting Cash: You can either have cash delivered or you can pick up
cash on your own. Picking up cash on your own is usually faster (it usually
takes about three to five days to get a petty cash check) while cash delivery
is more convenient but takes more time (it usually takes about five additional
days for cash delivery).
To pick up cash on your own: The
UAA accounting office will issue you a petty cash check. The accounting office
is at the University Center. To pick this check up go in person or ask your
department administrative staff to pick up the check (most departments have
daily runs to accounting and can pick up the check). Go to a bank and cash the
petty cash check. NOTE: you should not deposit a petty cash check into a
personal account, the check needs to be cashed out in full and the cash stored
by the researcher.
To have cash delivered: To have cash delivered, indicate this on the
“experiment petty cash form” and submit a FNBA central
vault request form with your petty cash request. Use the vault request
form to indicate the denominations of cash that you are requesting.
The petty cash request that your administrative staff
submits to Martha Nelson in accounting should indicate the name of the person
to whom the cash will be delivered. Right now it is easiest to list Lance Howe
– 786-5409 – elhowe at uaa.alaska.edu –
as the primary contact since he has been dealing directly with the cashier’s
office, UPD, and the safe is in his office.
Accounting will submit the petty cash check directly to the
UAA cashiering office (you don’t need to pick it up). Once the cash is
delivered to the UAA cashiers office, Lance will receive a call and will set up
a day for delivery or pick-up. If UPD delivers the cash they will deliver
sometime between 11:00 and 12:00 Monday through Friday. Currently we are
charged around $25 per delivery.
After deliver Lance will contact the researcher and
they will verify the amount of cash delivery using the lab cash-counting machine.
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5.
Cash handling and storage: We have several small cash boxes that are
stored in the larger safe. Each researcher receives a cash box for each project
/ experiment they are running. Researchers receive a key to their cash box and
the only back-up key is kept in a sealed envelope in an administrative office.
All researchers have the combination to the safe but each researcher has a
unique cash box key. Researchers are responsible for accounting for all cash at
the end of an experiment and they are responsible for any missing cash.
If a lab
assistant will be running experiments for a researcher, then the researcher
should coordinate with the assistant to provide the cash. The assistant will
have an empty lab cash box to use for cash handling. The assistant should only
be given enough cash for daily experiments. At the end of the day, or early the
next day, the assistant will return residual cash to the administrator who will
put it in the safe. We do not store cash in the lab.
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6.
Making Cash Payments: Lab staff will make incentive payments for the
researcher at the conclusion of experiments. All participating subjects who
receive a cash payment sign the lab show-up / sign-in sheet and complete the UA Research
Subject Payments form. Subjects must include either a student id number
or a social security number.
Subjects who are not US citizens or resident aliens are paid
in cash at the time of the experiment but must complete additional paperwork. International
students must provide the additional Tax Residency information on the UA Research
Subject Payments form. This information should be kept current. Lab
staff must also make photocopies of the international student passport and visas
and submit them to the UAA accounting office. To allow for cash payments the
lab pays a 30% tax on incentive payments for each student participating in the
experiment. Researchers from other
institutions will need to reimburse the lab for this extra cost.
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7. Researchers from Other
Institutions: When researchers from an institution
other than UAA run an experiment at UAA, the lab will make subject incentive
payments on their behalf and will follow UAA accounting protocol. The outside
researcher will make a direct payment CBPP and funds will be deposited into the
designated lab account. The lab will arrange for cash to be available for the
outside researcher to run their experiment. The outside researcher will be
charged a small fee for this service.
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8.
Subject Packets:
Before
your experiment please email lab staff electronic copies of any extra
handouts you would like us to include in subject packets on the day of the
experiment. Normally we distribute the consent form and the subject
compensation form.
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9.
Running the Experiment:
Researchers
should coordinate with the lab director to run experiments. The lab assistant
can run experiments for researchers and it is easiest if lab staff assist in making
incentive payments. If the programming for your experiment is new, please
plan to be present the first experimental session or have your project programmer
present.
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10. Accounting for cash:
The accounting office prefers that
receipts are turned in as experimental sessions are completed. At a minimum, researchers
should turn in all receipts about three days before the petty cash closure
deadline indicated on the petty cash request form.
The
typical process is for the lab assistant to account for cash with the
experimenter after each experiment. The experimenter forwards experiment
receipts before the petty cash closure deadline (in groups or all at once) to
Roxana in the CBPP deans office. The packet of information should include:
a. A summary sheet for
each experimental session or group of experiments
b. Signed Research
subject payment forms
c. Any remaining cash at the
end of the experimental sessions
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Facility Use Fees:
The lab
can receive payments for facilities use or administrative support of
experiments. We have created a CBPP facilities use form for these
purposes and money received by the lab for services will be kept in the
designated lab account (org 11124 – fund 104110).
At the lab's discretion a nominal service fee may be charged to researchers
running experiments at the UAA lab. We request that researchers writing
grant proposals include a service fee in their proposed budget. The
cost for running 10 identical two hour experiments is roughly $1,500 to $2,000.
Please contact Lance Howe at
786-5409 or elhowe at uaa.alaska.edu for more information.
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