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Terminology

Activity

A type of action the participant performs while participating in your research study. Examples include responding surveys, completing a cognitive task, or filling in a time use diary.

Background App

Refers to a state of the Avicenna app for Android or iOS, when it's not seen on the phone's screen, but it is operational behind the scenes, collecting sensor data. This is the opposite to the Foreground App state.

Blocked Session

Avicenna app can only have one active session for a given activity at any given time. For example, a study contains a survey for health check that is prompted to participants once a day. Before the session for a given day is prompted, the session for the previous day should be concluded. If the session for the previous day is still active awaiting participant's response, the new session will be marked as Blocked Session.

Canceled Session

If a participant explicitly indicates they do not want to continue responding to a given session from a given activity, the session will be marked as Canceled Session.

Any responses provided by the respondent up to the time they cancel the survey, will be uploaded and will be available in your study.

Closed Study

A state of a study, in which no new participant can join the study. In this state, currently enrolled participants can still continue their participation without any interruption.

Cognitive Task

A type of activity where the participant is asked to perform a particular cognitive task. Similar to surveys, cognitive tasks can be presented once or multiple times to each participant.

Completed Session

A session that is completed by the participant. For example, in the case of survey activities, a survey session is completed when the participant responds to all presented questions and presses the Submit button.

The content of the informed consent. This is presented to each participant prior to joining the study, and the participant must agree to them before they can be enrolled in the study. Participants can always access this via the Avicenna app.

Criteria

A conditional expression, or a formula, which instructs Avicenna whether an action has to happen or not. If a component in your study contains a criteria, every time Avicenna wants to execute that component, it first evaluates the criteria. It only proceeds with the execution if the criteria is True.

Data Source

A type of data that is automatically collected from participants without their involvement. Examples include sensor-based data such as accelerometer for motion, location via GPS, or heartrate via wearables. It also can include digital footprint such as screen-time or app usage.

Device

A device that is used by a participant to participate in a study. It can be an Android phone or tablet, an iOS phone or tablet, or a web browser. Each device is uniquely identified via a device ID.

Device Operation %

The percentage of the time that the Avicenna app was running, in the foreground or in the background, collecting sensor data.

Draft Changes

Draft changes are the changes that are not published yet, and therefore cannot be viewed by the participants. Participants always only have access to the latest published version of a survey activity.

Dropout Survey

A type of activity to be prompted immediately after the participant decides to withdraw from the study, and before the withdrawal is completed.

Eligibility Survey

A type of activity to be prompted immediately after the participant decides to join the study. This survey uses criteria to decide whether the participant should be included in the study or not.

Enrolment Status

The status of the study regarding participant enrollment. A study can be either public, closed, or invite-only.

Expired Session

If a participant does not complete the session within the allocated time window, the session will be marked as Expired Session. Any responses provided up to the expiration time will be uploaded and will be available in your study.

Expiry Duration

The duration that is given to the participant to complete a session, before it's marked as Expired Session.

Foreground App

Refers to a state of the Avicenna app, either Android or iOS, in which the participant is interacting with it on the phone’s screen. This is the opposite to the Background App state.

In Progress Session

This status indicates the session has started by the participant, and some questions are already responded to, but it's not completed yet.

Invite-Only Study

A state of a study, in which participants can join the study only if they are invited to the study by the researcher. The invitations are based on the email addresses of the prospective participants which are used for invitation.

Notification

An alerting message which is sent to a given participant or researcher. A notification is created either from a template or manually sent from the Notification section in the researcher dashboard. When a given event occurs for which a notification template is defined, Avicenna creates a notification based on that template, fills all placeholders (e.g. with the name of the recipient), and sends the notification through the specified mediums. The sent notification will be saved for reference.

Notification Medium

A medium through which a notification can be delivered to the intended participant or researcher. Avicenna supports email, SMS (test messages), and in-app notifications.

Notification Template

A template for a notification, that specifies the recipient of the notification, the criteria under which the notification should be prompted, and the mediums through which the notification should be sent, and the content of the notification. The content in a notification template is defined separately for each medium that can contain placeholders.

Participant

Participants, or respondents, are individuals who have consented to join your study in order to perform the tasks you have asked them and provide the data your study collects throughout the participation period. Participants can use the Avicenna app on their Android, iPhone, or browser to participate in a study, but they cannot access the researcher dashboard, make changes to the study configuration, or see the data from other participants.

Participant App Version

Each release on participant mobile apps has a unique version which is used to identify that specific release.

Participant Audit Logs

The logs recorded by Avicenna app from participant's interaction with the study, the events occured throughout the participation, and the changes made to the participant.

Participation Duration

This refers to the number of days that participant will be part of the study and provide data.

Participation Period

Participation Period comprises from Participation Start Time to Participation End Time. Participation Start Time is the first day on which data collection from participants starts. Note that participants may register in the study earlier, but Avicenna does not start data collection until Participation Start Time is reached. If participant joins the study after Participation Start Time, data collection starts immediately.

Similarly, Participation End Time refers to the end of data collection from participants. No new participant can join after this date. Also data collection will stop from all participants on this date.

Proximity Triggering Logic

A triggering logic which prompts a given activity when Avicenna app detects the proximity between the participant and another physical object, e.g. another participant, a certain location, or a bike. Such detection happens using Bluetooth Beacon data; therefore, this triggering logic is applicable only if the study contains the Bluetooth Beacon data source.

Public Study

A state of a study, in which anyone can join the study, whether they hold an invitation or not.

Registration Code

The code participants should enter to find your study within Avicenna and enroll in it. Participants can enroll in your study through different ways, including a URL, QR code, or registration code.

Researcher

Researchers are study staff members who have access to the study settings and participants' data through the Researcher Dashboard. They can design the study, configure different components in Avicenna, screen and enroll participants, monitor adherence, in addition to analyze study data. Researchers cannot participate in a study as a participant. They also cannot login to the Avicenna app as the app is intended for the participants only.

Researcher-Defined Session

Researcher-defined sessions refer to the manually created and scheduled sessions initiated by researchers.

Researcher Triggered Session

A session is triggered by the researcher and sent to the participant's device to be completed. This is often a one-off session created and sent to the participant.

Session

When an activity is triggered to a participant, Avicenna will create a Session for it. This session will hold the information about the triggered activity, as well as the metadata and the responses provided by the participants. For example, every time a survey is completed by a participant, the data are stored as a survey session. Similarly, every time a participant complete a cognitive task, the data is stored as a cognitive task session.

Study

Study is the main building block of a research within Avicenna. Each Study represents a research project. It defines the study protocol, enrollment strategy, surveys, cognitive tasks, data collection scheme, and other settings. It also contains all data collected from the participants. Studies are independent components within Avicenna, and they cannot share data with other studies, even if they all are created by the same researcher.

Study ID

A unique identifier for the study within Avicenna platform. Participants can find and join the study by entering the ID of the study.

Study URL

The URL participants can use to enroll in the study.

Survey

A type of activity by which the participants are asked to respond to a set of questions. Similar to cognitive tasks, presenting a survey to each participant is possible either once or multiple times. Each time a survey is presented to a participant, the gathered metadata and responses are stored in a survey session.

Survey Definition File

A Survey Definition File is a file that contains all the structure, content, and logic for a Survey. It can be used as a base for creating different similar Surveys. Such file typically includes information such as metadata, questions, possible answers, TLs.

Time Triggering Logic

A triggering logic based on which a specific time-table specifies when the activity should be prompted to the participant. A Time Triggering Logic always contains an initial time. In details, this is the time when the activity is prompted to the participaants for the first time. It may also have a repeating schedule, which if set, the activity will be prompted multiple times based on the repetition schedule.

Triggering Logic

A logic that specifies when an activity should be prompted to the participant. This can be based on time, user's actions, or sensors.

Unknown Session

This status indicates Avicenna does not know the status of the session yet. The unknown sessions are generally divided into two groups: those that their scheduled time is not arrived yet, and those that their scheduled time is already past.

If the scheduled time of a session is not arrived yet, this means the session is not prompted yet. When the scheduled time arrives, Avicenna evaluates the criteria of the session (if any) and prompt it if the criteria is true. If the criteria is not true, the session will be skipped. Therefore, the status of the session is Unknown, and the app will determine in the future whether it has to prompt the session or not.

If the scheduled time of the session is already arrived, but the status is still Unknown, it means the Avicenna server has not received the status from the device yet. Because the Avicenna apps for Android and iOS work offline, if the participant does not have Internet connection at the time of completing a survey, the status of the session is not updated immediately after its scheduled time. Hence, the scheduled time may pass, and the session may still be shown as Unknown. Avicenna server updates the status immediately after it receives it from the participant's device.

Upcoming Session

Please refer to Unknown Session.

User ID

The unique ID of the user in Avicenna. Each user, either the Researcher or Participant, has a unique ID in Avicenna. This ID enables us to refer to this user across the system.

Often in the documentation the term Participant ID refers to the User ID of the participant, and Researcher ID refers to the User ID of a researcher.

User Triggering Logic

A triggering logic which instructs Avicenna to give the option Of starting an activity and repeating it as many times as they want to the participants. In details, Avicenna adds a button to the participant's homepage on the app, then participants can launch an activity via that button at any time.