Shared Locations in a Nutshell

The side-by-side comparison above provides a quick overview of how the system handles scheduling conflicts with timeslots using Shared locations vs. timeslots using other locations. Now it’s time to get into a bit more detail.

First, and to prevent any confusion, it’s important to understand that Shared locations do not actually allow two researchers (let alone more!) to share the same location during the same time window. Shared locations are not a way to override scheduling conflicts, but a way to handle them differently.

If a location is a Shared location, researchers can add temporary timeslot using this location to different studies providng that the start and end times match.

The qualifier “temporary” exists because the system will still resolve the scheduling conflict automatically. It’s just a matter of when this happens and why.

A regular (i.e., “non-shared”) location is reserved as soon as a researcher adds a timeslot to their study using this location. With Shared locations, multiple timeslots co-exist so long as no participants have signed up for any of them.

To make this more concrete, imagine a time window on a specific day: 9AM to 10AM on Wednesday. Multiple timeslots using this time period and using the same Shared location can be added to different studies. So, for example, five researchers conducting five different studies can all add timeslots to their individual studies using this 9AM to 10AM time window AND the same Shared location. However, at most one of these researchers will actually get the reservation for the Shared location during this time window (the only other possible outcome is 0 researchers getting, and this only happens if no participants sign up for any of the five timeslots).

The point is that, although there can be multiple temporary timeslots using the same Shared location for the same time window, ultimately there will be only one. As soon as one of these timeslots has a signup, the other timeslots will no longer be available.

This is the basic process. We could go into greater detail, but there’s a better way to illustrate more about how Shared locations work: An example.

To start our example, let us introduce two researchers: Alice and Bob. Both work out of the same institute and, while they do occasionally collaborate (indeed, both sometimes quite famously, and sometimes with the famous!), for the most part each conducts studies independently of the other.

At the moment, these two researchers are each in the final stages of setting up a study in Sona. Alice’s study is Study Alpha, while Bob’s study is “Fun and Games for Fun and Profit”. Both are active and approved, and our two researchers are each in the process of adding timeslots to their respective studies.

This should all be familiar territory. We’ll briefly remain on familiar grounds, because we want to compare (now using this example) how scheduling works with both non-shared and Shared locations, so why not start with what’s familiar?

Alice and Bob are both trying to reserve highly sought-after locations for early November. At the moment, they are both interested in reserving time in Observance Lab 1 for 11AM on November 5th. It just so happens that Alice adds her timeslot first. Thus, when Bob attempts to add a timeslot to his study for the same time on the same day, he receives the following message:

It’s first come, first serve, and Alice got there first. When Bob tries to add his timeslot, the system checks availability, sees that the location is reserved by Alice, and prevents Bob from adding his timeslot.

Sometime later, participants begin checking their accounts for available studies and looking at available times for those studies they find interesting. Many participants click on the study “Fun and Games for Fun and Profit” to view additional details before checking for available times. Many sign up for this study, and there are more participants who want to sign up then there are available timeslots.

Very few participants click on Study Alpha, which isn’t surprising given the study name and the fact that the description reads: “This is a Study. It is for research.” Even fewer participants bother to look at available times.

Importantly, only those few participants who do bother to look at timeslots for study Alpha will ever see the one reserving Observance Lab 1 on November 5th. None of them sign up for it, though. This wouldn’t be as big of a deal were it not for the fact that Bob, who was somewhat slower adding timeslots, has no more timeslots available and the lab location he needs is completely booked.

Thus, on November 5th at 11AM, Observance Lab 1 is empty, despite Bob’s need for the location and in spite of it being available to participants (if only they had elected to participate in Alice’s study).

This is what can happen when researchers share a location, but without it being a Shared location (i.e., without “Available to Multiple Studies?” enabled). We’re now going to go back and time and repeat the same process. This time, however, we’ll make Observance Lab 1 a Shared location.

What follows will be essentially the same series of events as above, but with one small, important change: Observance Lab 1 is now a Shared location. Everything proceeds as it did previously right up until the moment Bob tries to add a timeslot. As before, both Alice and Bob want to reserve Observance Lab 1 for 11AM on November 5th and (also as before), Alice got their first. This time, though, when Bob tries to add his timeslot, the system sees a scheduling conflict, but it also sees that the location can be shared across studies.

Next (and this is important!), the system checks to make sure that the time period Bob is trying to reserve starts and ends at the same time as Alice’s. If one study runs longer, then the system will see treat this as a scheduling conflict.

Luckily, both Alice’s and Bob’s timeslots are for one hour, so the system allows Bob to add this timeslot to his study.

Time goes by (as it often does), and once more participants log in to their accounts. This time, participants who click on Bob’s study and check for timeslots will see the one for 11AM November 5th in Observance Lab 1. The same is still true (at least initially) for participants who check the timeslots for Study Apha.

Now, however, as soon as a participant signs up for Bob’s study (because, let’s be honest, they’re not going to sign up for Study Alpha), and picks the timeslot using the shared location, Alice’s timeslot for November 5th at 11AM will no longer be available.

Participants can still sign up for Bob’s timeslot for 11AM on November 5th until all available slots fill up.

The important point, and the main takeaway for this part of the example, is that because a participant signed up for Bob’s timeslot first, he gets the reservation.

The above example illustrates how Shared locations work, but it is simplistic. It revolves around only two researchers competing for use of one location during a single time window. While the example’s simplicity makes it easier to follow, we need more to give you a better picture of how Shared locations can benefit you.

The obvious starting point is to start thinking beyond a single block of time while continuing to consider a single location. To make this more realistic, you can imagine a location that multiple different researchers or research groups use and that contains expensive equipment. This might be an MRI machine set up for functional neuroimaging, an HCI lab using cockpit/flight pod, a centrifuge-based gravitational simulator, or any number similar labs that involve expensive machinery, lack mobility, and must be shared.

Under such conditions, a standard approach is to have sign-up lists that are booked way in advance and (if researchers are lucky) provide some sort of cap on the number of uses for each researcher so that no single researcher can hog all the spots. Perhaps a better solution, though, is to turn that lab into a Shared location.

Making such labs Shared locations opens up a number of different types of coordinated scheduling solutions you can use depending on your needs. Instead of a mad grab for the earliest and most convenient times available, fixed or semi-fixed periods of times can be set aside that allow multiple researchers to book the lab for the same time windows. The reservation then goes to the first to receive a signup.

You may be thinking that different studies have different durations, so setting aside blocks of time in advance wouldn’t work here. However, labs that use physical or digital signup sheets typically do not simply let researchers choose how long they want to use the lab. Rather, they rely on fixed time periods already. This is partly because if a research group has participants coming in to use a centrifuge or put on a haptics suit, it’s never for 10 minutes. In addition to the time needed to actually use the lab, studies involving expensive technology and equipment often involve a fair amount of prep work before the participant walks in, followed by “clean-up” time after thee participant leaves (e.g., resetting the equipment/space, removing equipment that was added at the start of the study such as specialized keyboards or controls, etc.).

In short, the lab’s technology and equipment often dictate, at least to some extent, a natural duration. These can be easily translated into timeslots using the same time windows for a Shared location. Because it’s often more practical for those in charge of such facilities to offer blocks of time with a standardized duration anyway, it’s simple enough to offer these as shared timeslots.

This way, instead of having one researcher sign-up for one block of time until they hit a maximum, multiple researchers can use up all their allotted time at once (or staggered) by adding shared timeslots to their studies. This won’t guarantee a specific researcher gets a particular slot, but it does ensure no researcher reserves a block of time only to have no participants for that timeslot.

We’ve seen what Shared locations do and an example of how a Shared location works in practice. That’s most of what you need to know. Before we close, though, there are a few additional tools and tips to be aware of. Of these, perhaps the most important is the schedule for shared locations. After all, this feature helps coordinate scheduling for locations.
You can view the schedule for any location on the day selected by clicking on the View Schedule button when adding or editing timeslots:

This will open a pop-up view for location usage on that day:

You can cycle through different locations using the dropdown menu. The menu will indicate which locations are shared locations:

Those locations with the “Available to Multiple Studies” parenthetical are Shared locations. Please note that simply selecting a different location won’t automatically show the schedule for that location. You need to click the update button first.

When researchers add a timeslot using a shared location, the View Schedule feature gives them the start and end times for any given day. This makes it much easier for researchers to make their timeslots part of a shared timeslot. They merely have to 1) make sure they use the same start time and 2) make sure that their study duration is compatible.

View Schedule isn’t the only tool that can help you make the most out of Shared locations, but it is certainly a highly useful one. Unlike other calendar features Sona offers, View Schedule focuses on a particular day rather than periods of week or month or more. There is a very good reason behind this focus: View Schedule is there to help researchers pick times when adding a timeslot, so it displays the schedule for the day of that timeslot.

What if you want a more general look usage for a location or locations for longer periods of time? For administrators, this is particularly easy. On the Generate Reports page, administrators can use Study Schedule to generate a report for a specific location or all locations. They can also set a start date and end date, then view the schedule for that date range.

Researchers do not have this option, but that doesn’t mean they are left without tools designed with researchers in mind. Researchers can easily make their study schedules available to other researchers using the Calendar Feed feature.

You may have noticed that all of these tools are related to calendars and schedules. This is not an accident. Certain features provide administrators with the kind of bird’s eye view that makes it easier to help researchers determine time blocks for shared locations, as well as to track these. For researchers, the focus is more specific to studies, whether it is the View Schedule to help with a timeslot, or adding Calendar Feeds to one another’s calendars to better coordinate shared location usage.

We’ve covered the basics of using Shared locations and beyond. At this point, you should have a good grasp of what making a location a Shared location entails. We’ve even thrown a quick introduction to using Shared locations together with other scheduling tools for improved results.

We’d like to conclude with some advice that may be especially helpful to administrators or those in similar positions who understand the mechanics of Shared locations, but for one reason or another still wonder whether to use this feature.
If this is you, perhapds you are a new administrator. Or maybe you are an experienced administrator, but you haven’t had a lot of experience scheduling timeslots because that’s handled by researchers. The specific context doesn’t necessarily matter. What’s important is that that you still aren’t necessarily sure whether and/or when to use Shared locations

That’s ok. This feature deals with some more advanced aspects of scheduling. If you are concerned because it sounds like this feature would cause more problems for you than it would solve, and you think that you must not be getting it, let us reassure you. It could be that the researcher-based “first come, first” approach to reserving locations (the default) works just fine. When researchers rarely have to compete to reserve time in one or more locations, there may not be any benefits to making any location a Shared location.

That said, research, labs, and the institutes that support them are anything but stagnant. Situations change. The last takeaway we want you to have here is an understanding of what to have in the back of your mind should circumstances change. Maybe a new research group is added, or your department buys some new and highly sought-after equipment that only works in one room, or something else changes that necessitates a more “hands-on”, organized approach to allocating resources like locations.

If something like this happens, or your researchers start to complain about never getting the “good” locations at the best times, keep this option in mind.