Rolling Schedule for EMA and ESM

How to Utilize Rolling Schedule for EMA and ESM

The rolling schedule allows you to schedule your ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and experience sampling method (ESM) surveys based on when your participants start the project. We recommend using this when you want to have a flexible start date for participants. This often occurs when you have participants join on a rolling basis.

Unlike the CALENDAR schedule, which ties the surveys to specific calendar dates, a researcher may seek to collect the same time length data from participants regardless of when participants start the project. The "Rolling Schedule" helps researchers to schedule and collect, for example, 2 weeks' worth of data from participants, beginning whenever the participant starts the project.

When you choose the rolling schedule, you will see your surveys on the left side and the layout comprising weeks (Wk.) and days (1-7), as shown below.

Scheduling

To schedule your surveys, drag the survey into the desired day and then choose window times. In the example below, the survey starts on the first day when participants add the project.

                               

"Week 1, Day 1" refers to when a participant enters the access code to start the project on their mobile device. Therefore, if a survey begins on "Week 1, Day 1" (where the "Start" is on the scheduler), a participant starts receiving notifications to take surveys on the same day.

It is possible for participants to miss surveys if they start the project past the time slot of the survey. For example, if a researcher sets a survey time slot to 9am-10am on Week 1, Day 1, a participant entering the access code and starting the project at 11am will miss the first survey time slot from 9am-10am.

If there is concern that participants add the project at a later time on the first day and miss the first survey day, we recommend that researchers start the project on Week 1, Day 2.

Static Surveys

If you'd like to schedule static surveys, drag the survey to the first day you want it to be available and toggle the 'Make Survey Static' button (shown in the red box). This survey will then be available for a specified number of days, which you can set as shown below. 

In this example, the static survey is available daily for the first 5 days of the study. You also have the option to let participants respond one time or multiple times (indicated by the red box in the screenshot below).

If 'Multiple' is selected, you can choose one or multiple submissions per day. 

Single Survey Extended over Days

If you'd like to schedule a single survey available to participants at any point over an extended period, you can simply drag the survey to the first day you'd like the survey to be available (for example, week 1, day 3 in the example screenshot below). You can edit the survey open window, but for this example, we will leave it as 12am. After this, you will need to edit the survey close window (indicated in the red box). Toggle the 'Extend Past Midnight?' button and select either 'Next Day' or 'Custom Day' according to your needs. 

In this example, we will schedule this survey over five days, until week 1, day 7. As shown in the screenshot below, you will not see any changes reflected on the schedule. 

On the mobile end, participants can see that a single survey was scheduled from day 3 to day 7 (day 1 is 7th November in this example screenshot) of the study. This survey only allows one submission during that entire window.

  

Multiple Surveys Repeated within a Day

If you'd like to have the same survey repeated within a single day, you can simply drag the surveys repeatedly to the date and adjust the open and close timings to set the appropriate time slot for each survey.

Rolling Schedule: Manage Schedule Start 

With the rolling schedule, participants join the study at different times. Our platform allows researchers to manage the start of the scheduled surveys with three different options:

1. Flexible Start Date
   
2. Start Day
   
3. Intake Survey
   

Only one of the above options can be enabled at a time, and the other manage schedule options will be disabled.

Flexible Start Date

The 'Flexible Start Date' option allows participants to choose the date they want to start the project rather than just starting the study when they add it to the ExpiWell app.

How to Set up 'Flexible Start Date':

Toggle the 'Flexible Start Date' button on the scheduling page in the rolling schedule type. 

                                                                                                                                                          

After toggling the 'Flexible Start Date,' participants will be prompted to select their start date after entering the access code.

Start Day

This feature allows you to set a specific day of the week (e.g., Monday) for participants to start their surveys. This ensures precise control over the day of the week when your surveys begin, ensuring accurate and reliable data collection aligned with your study requirements.

This ensures that surveys targeting specific periods, such as working days or weekends, begin as intended.

Benefits:

1. Improved Data Accuracy: Ensures surveys are conducted during the intended periods, enhancing the accuracy of the collected data.
   
2. User Convenience: Simplifies the scheduling process for researchers, reducing the risk of incorrect start dates by participants.
   
3. Enhanced Study Design: This allows researchers to have greater control over their study design and collect more precise data.

By implementing this feature, we enhance the functionality of our survey scheduling system, ensuring that researchers can accurately capture experiences on their preferred days of the week. This improvement will lead to more reliable data and more insightful research outcomes.

How to Set up 'Start Day':

Toggle the 'Start Day' option on the scheduling page in the rolling schedule type. Select the exact day of the week (e.g., Monday, Tuesday, etc.) when the survey should start from the dropdown list indicated by the red arrow.

Intake Survey

This feature allows you to place an intake survey outside the main study schedule. This feature ensures that all preliminary data is collected before participants begin the scheduled surveys, streamlining the research process and improving data accuracy. After the participant completes the intake survey, day 1 of the scheduled surveys will start the next day.

Applications of 'Intake Survey': 

      1) Baseline Demographic Survey

1. Scenario:
   
1. You need participants to complete a baseline demographic survey.
   
2. You don't want the participant to continue if they do not complete this first survey.
   
2. Solution:
   
1. Set up an Intake Survey to ensure all participants complete the baseline demographic survey before moving on to the main study. This ensures that all necessary demographic information is collected upfront.
   

      2) Participant Identification

1. Scenario:
   
1. You need participants to enter their participant ID or email to identify them before they spend additional effort completing scheduled surveys.
   
2. Solution:
   
1. Create an Intake Survey to gather participant IDs or emails. This ensures that participant identification is completed before they proceed with the main study, allowing for accurate tracking and data management.
   

      3) Eligibility Screening: Ensure participants meet specific eligibility criteria before starting the main study.

      4) Consent Collection: Collect informed consent from participants before they start the main study.

      5) Pre-study Assessments: Gather initial assessments or baseline measurements critical for the study.

By leveraging the Intake Survey feature, you can ensure a smooth and efficient start to your studies, with all necessary preliminary data collected and verified before participants proceed with the primary scheduled surveys.

How to Set up 'Intake Survey':

Toggle the 'Intake Survey' option on the scheduling page in the rolling schedule type. From the dropdown list (indicated by the red arrow), select the specific survey that you want the participants to complete before proceeding to the scheduled surveys.

In this example, the 'Intake Survey' has been selected. As shown in the screenshot below, the schedule will not change as this will be the first survey participants will need to complete before they enter the main study schedule the next day. 

Survey Scheduling Options

Besides scheduling the surveys, our platform offers various survey schedule options, as shown below.

Randomize Notification: The default setting is that mobile app notifications will always be sent out at the beginning of the time slot. Toggling the 'randomize notification' option does three things: 

1. Randomize the notification within the time slot. The randomization is also individualized across all participants.
2. Closes the survey from when the notification is sent (default is 5 minutes but can be adjusted; e.g., 20 minutes)
3. Shows that the initial notification will be sent between the open and close window times, minus the minutes you allowed your participants to respond.
   

Fixed Reminder: Toggling this option sends a reminder notification to the participant if they have not yet responded to the survey. You can customize response time for this one-time reminder.

Snooze Reminder: This works like an alarm clock, and participants can re-snooze at a later time (available options for re-snooze are 15 and 30 minutes).

Survey Repeat: You can create repeats of your survey across days by keying in the frequency of the repeat and the number of additional days and clicking 'Apply.' The survey will repeat until the total number of additional days is reached. 

In this example, the survey will be repeated daily for 7 days in week 1.

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