Teaching with Open Lab

Open Lab can be used for demonstrations in lectures, where the class takes part in a task and then sees its own results, and for courses in which students build and run their own studies. This page describes both setups. Plans for teaching are described on the teaching page.

Lecture demonstrations

  1. Add a task from the Task Library

    Open a task in the Task Library, for example the Stroop task, and choose Add to workspace. Library tasks come with an analysis, which presentation mode uses to calculate the results.

  2. Create a study with the task

    Students take part through the study link and do not need an account. Run the study once yourself before the lecture to check the instructions and timing.

  3. Open presentation mode

    Choose Presentation mode in the study dashboard's quick links, or on the study's Data page (at the top of the page or in the Quick Summary tab). The projector shows a QR code and the study link, with counts of the students who have joined and finished. By default only results collected since you opened the session are shown; All data includes earlier ones, and New session starts the count again.

  4. Reveal and discuss

    Reveal results (or the R key) shows the condition means with 95% confidence intervals and one dot per student for the effect. For tasks with teaching notes, D opens the discussion questions and the typical effect. F switches to full screen.

Requirements

Presentation mode needs a task with an analysis, the same one the Quick Summary tab uses. For a task of your own, set it up on the task's Analysis page. Studies with end-to-end encryption cannot be presented, because their data can only be decrypted on the Data page.

Phones and keyboards

Most library tasks currently use keyboard responses, so students need a laptop. Versions for touch screens are being added.

Courses where students run their own studies

On the Team plan, everyone who accepts an invitation to one of your projects shares your plan. A course can use this: each student group works in its own project, and as the author of the projects you have owner access to every study linked to them.

  1. Get the Team plan

    The first term of a course is free; request it on the teaching page.

  2. Create one project per student group

    Every collaborator on a project can see all studies linked to it, so separate projects keep the groups' studies and data apart.

  3. Invite the students

    In each project, open the Team tab and use Invite by email with the role Editor. Students without an account are invited to create one. Once a student accepts, the Team plan applies to their account.

  4. Students link their studies to the project

    Students create their studies in their own accounts and add them to their group's project in the project's Studies tab, under Link an existing study. You can then open each study, its settings and its data.

Consent and ethics

When students collect data from people outside a classroom demonstration, their studies resemble research: participants should give informed consent through a consent step in the study, and your institution may require ethics review for student projects.

At the end of the term

  • Download the data that you or the students want to keep.
  • Remove the students from the projects in the Team tab. While they are collaborators, the Team plan applies to their whole account, so removing them returns each account to its own plan.
  • A teaching plan for the next term can be requested on the teaching page.