Portal Guide

Overview

The portal is where studies are set up, participant access is issued, and study sessions are reviewed. The main areas are the Dashboard, Experiments, Invites, and Licenses. Access is granted by the platform owner, and each person is assigned a role (researcher or research assistant).

Getting started

1. Request access - the platform owner creates your account and assigns your role.
2. Set up your account - complete the onboarding steps (including multi-factor authentication) the first time you log in.
3. Confirm your study - your experiment should already be configured; if not, contact the study team.
4. Explore - use this guide to get familiar with each area before your first session.

Access & roles

The portal uses roles to control what each person can do:

• Researchers - full access to an experiment: manage its details, issue participant codes, and review sessions.
• Research assistants - day-to-day access: issue and redeem participant codes, and review recent sessions for the experiments they are assigned to.

Roles and experiment membership are managed by the platform owner or a researcher with permission to manage the study team.

What each part does

A short explanation of the portal's building blocks and how they fit together.

Accounts, roles & organizations

Every person has an account with a role. The platform owner manages accounts. An organization groups a study team, and experiments belong to an organization. Roles decide what you can see and do:

• Owner - runs the platform: issues invites, manages licenses, and sees everything.
• Researcher (PI) - runs studies: creates experiments, issues session codes, reviews sessions, and manages their study team.
• Research assistant - supports a study: helps participants start sessions and reviews recent activity, within what the researcher allows.

Invites

Invites are how people join the platform. The owner (or a researcher with permission) sends an invite, which arrives as a one-time code (for example, SYN-XXXX-XXXX). The invite is single-use, has an expiry (by default about a week), and can be revoked before it is used. When the invite is redeemed, the person creates their account, which includes setting up multi-factor authentication.

In the Invites area you can see the status of each invite (pending, redeemed, expired, or revoked) and revoke one that has not been used.

Experiments

An experiment is the container for a study. Creating one records the study basics: a name, the associated lesson reference, the expected number of participants, and the ethics (IRB) protocol reference. Experiments can be marked as pilot studies, and their status is tracked (for example, active or closed). Deleting an experiment is soft (it is hidden, not permanently erased).

Session codes

Session codes are how a participant starts a session. A researcher issues codes for an experiment (one per participant, in batches); each code is short and opaque (for example, S4K7-PQ3M, or PILOT-XXXX-XXXX for pilot studies). Codes are single-use and expire after about a week. A participant redeems their code when they begin, which validates it and links the resulting session to the experiment. Issued codes appear in the experiment's Session Codes list with their status.

Sessions

A session is one participant's run through the experiment. The experiment page lists recent sessions with their status, and opening one shows the session's trials and the events recorded during them, plus summary indicators (for example, whether it completed). Sessions are the unit you review when checking data quality.

Licenses

Licenses control which content or signal providers are permitted for use in lessons. The Licenses area shows these and their status. Viewing is available to the study team; issuing and revoking licenses is an owner-level action. A lesson only records signals for providers that are licensed and enabled for it.

Dashboard

The dashboard is the landing view after login. It shows:

• System status - whether the platform is operational.
• Live sessions - which participants are currently in a session.
• Experiment overview - your experiments at a glance and quick links into each one.

Experiments

This is the core area for running a study. Each experiment has a dedicated page with:

• Details - the study name, associated lesson identifier, and review/ethics reference.
• Session codes - generate and manage the codes participants use to start a session. Codes are issued per participant and redeemed when they begin.
• Recent sessions - a list of sessions for the experiment, with their status.
• Per-session view - open a session to see its trials and recorded events, and summary indicators such as whether it completed.

Experiment creation and deletion are researcher-level actions.

Invites

Invites control who can join the platform and which role they receive. As a study team member you may:

• Send an invite - add a researcher or assistant to the platform.
• Revoke an invite - cancel an invite that has not been used.
• Redeem - new members redeem their invite to activate their account.

Licenses

The Licenses area shows which content or providers are licensed for use in your studies. Researchers can view the license status; issuing and managing licenses is an owner-level action.

Session monitoring

During live sessions, the dashboard shows active participants, and each experiment page lists its sessions with status. A session that is in progress can be reviewed in near real time (trials and events), and completed sessions remain available for review afterward.

Data & review

Detailed study data is reviewed through the session views in each experiment (trials and events per session). Full consolidated exports for analysis are provided outside the portal by the study team; identity is separated from session data by default. Contact the study team for export requests.

Support

If a feature behaves unexpectedly or a participant has trouble, contact the study team with the experiment name, the participant's session code or reference, and a short description. For questions about study design or measurement settings, reach out before starting data collection.