Observer Details for itracks Board

Your email invitation

Prior to the discussion board opening, you will receive an email from [e-mail] with instructions and login details.  The email will inform you of the length of the project, project start time, and tech support information. Your login information will also be present in your email invitation. 

Registration and Login Page

A Registration and Login Page link will be present in your invitation.  This link allows you to set up your login details for the project and will be the link you use to log in for your actual research session. 

When clicking on the Registration and Login Page link from your email, you will be taken to the registration page and asked to register for the project. First, you will set your password. 

Creating a Password: Your password can be anything that you would like it to be as long as it meets the system complexity requirements.  This will be the password that you use to log into the project and attend sessions.  The complexity requirements for your password are as follows:

Passwords must be at least 8 characters long.
Passwords must contain multiple character types. Try:

• Adding both upper and lowercase letters.
• Adding numbers.
• Adding punctuation.
  

Enter your Password and Confirm Password in the fields as shown below. Click Continue.

Terms of Service: The terms of service must be agreed to in order to register.  To read the Terms of Service, click on the link in the account information area and to accept the Terms of Service, check the ‘I accept the Terms of Service’ checkbox. 

In some cases where the research team has determined it is important that the Terms of Service is fully read by each user,  the Terms of Service will appear after you register.  In these cases, the terms of service will appear on a page that needs to be agreed to before entering the study.  The accept button will remain gray until the Terms of Use page has been scrolled all the way to the bottom. It is not until the document has been scrolled and read that you can accept the Terms of Service.

Getting to your Research Activities

Once you have registered and logged into the project you will be taken to a page listing all the boards you have access to. As an observer, you can also access boards that are not yet open. To get into a particular activity click on the row of the activity you want to go into as an observer. Boards that are open will have a Join Now button to show they are live. 

Board Observer View

As an observer, you will see four different tabs.

Home tab

The Home tab will bring you to your dashboard

Welcome tab

Here you will find the Welcome Message. The purpose of this page is to provide some general information about the Bulletin Board as well as the technical support information.  You may also see the Participant Activity here.  This area will allow you to see the last time participants were active in the group.

 

Discussion

There are 2 frames under the Discussion tab – see below for reference.

The Navigation Area

The left area of your screen is for Navigation. This is where you will find the topics and the discussion questions for each day of the board. 

The Discussion/Reply Area

The largest area of your screen is the Discussion/Reply area where you will see the questions, your responses, and other participant responses to questions. This area will also be used to enter in your replies below the question or when you choose to click the Reply button in response to other people’s posts. In short, this is where all of the group conversations take place.

 

Profiles

This area shows all the users’ profiles.  If you click the name of a participant that has logged in you will see the participant’s answers to the demographic questionnaire they filled out when they first logged into the facility. You can also see who has or hasn’t uploaded an avatar.

Participating in Research as an Observer

Click on a topic on the left to see all the questions under that topic. To see the full question and responses, click on a question under the topic.

Note: All questions with new posts will show a number beside them in the Navigation Frame. Clicking on this number will only bring up the new posts, old ones being temporarily hidden. Click on the question itself to bring up ALL posts.  

To leave a message for the moderator click on the Reply button.  A text box will be open for you where you can input the information that you want to leave.

Once this is done, click on the Post Reply button to post your message to the board.  Only the moderator and other observers will be able to see what you have posted to the board.

Accessing Technical Support

If you still have questions or require any additional tech support while in the discussion group you can email us at any time at [e-mail] using your regular email provider.

We are also available via phone at 1-888-525-5026 (North American Toll Free), or [phone] (International Non Toll Free).