Study management

Create a study

  1. Click on Create new study

  2. Fill in all required fields on the page:

    • Name describes the title of the study you want to create

    • Principal Investigator is the lead researcher

    • Responsible contact person is the person who can be contacted if any questions regarding the study occur

    • Phone number and Email-address are the contact information at which the contact person can be reached

    • Required number of subjects is the number of people you need to recruit for this study

  3. Decide on setting it up as a regular study that includes study recruitment and execution or as a one time invitation. The option Is a one time invitation should only be used when you are sure that it is sufficient to invite potential subjects anonymously via mail.

  4. Fill in any additional information (you can still do that later)

    Note

    Quick note on Consent: this allows users to upload a blueprint of the study consent. This blueprint can be obtained (and printed) later by recruiters or conductors.

  5. Click on Save to record your progress

Warning

When choosing option Is a one time invitation: Please be aware that Castellum will not track actual participations or appointments and it will not provide pseudonyms within the study.

Find your study

Click on Studies on the front page

  • In the field Search you can look for a certain study

  • By default, only studies in which you are a member are displayed. Click on All studies to also see studies by other users.

  • You can also filter by Status.

Manage study members

The Member management tab allows you to give other staff members (e.g. recruiters) access to your study. Each row of the table represents a member. You can change their groups or remove them from your study. The last row allows you to add new members to the study.

Note

Some features (e.g. recruitment) only become available once the study is started. So, some added users may not instantly notice those role changes.

Start and stop a study

After a study has been created it is still in a draft state. Only Study Approvers have the permission to start recruitment. Depending on your organization, there may be different organizational steps such as a review associated with that.

In order to start or stop a study, a Study Approver needs to follow these steps:

  1. Find the study at the Studies page, click Details next to the study you wish to start/stop

  2. You can find the button Start near to the study name. By clicking on Start you initiate the recruiting process. Started studies will offer a stop button instead to stop (or pause) recruitment.

Warning

A study can still be changed after it has been approved and started. The tab “Changes” provides an overview of all the settings for a study. Any changes that were made since the study was started are highlighted.

Finish a study

  1. Find the study at the Studies page, click Details next to the study you wish to finish/resume.

  2. You can find the button Finish study next to the study name near to other buttons.

  3. Read the text and confirm

Delete a study

When a whole study should be deleted depends on the rules of your specific organization. We assume that it makes sense to delete all study data after few years.

  1. Find the study at the Studies page, click Details

  2. Make sure the study is finished (see Finish a study)

  3. Click on Delete under the study name. Confirm the notice I have made sure that all external data related to this study has been destroyed by clicking on Confirm