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1. Click on **Create new study**
- **Name** describes the title of the study you want to create
- **Responsible contact person** is the person who can be contacted if
any questions regarding the study occur
- **Principal Investigator** is the lead researcher
- **Phone number** and **E-mail-address** are the contact information at
which the contact person can be reached
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)
5. Click on **Save** to record your progress
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.
Now you can :ref:`find your study <study-search>` in the studies list.
.. _study-sessions:
Set up sessions
---------------
In the **Sessions** tab, you can enter as many test sessions as you like.
- **Add session**
- Set up **Start of test sessions** and **End of test sessions**
- Define general **Session instructions**
In **Session Instructions** you can inform recruiters on
conditions/requirements that may be important for or in between sessions.
For example, recruiters are often asked to ensure a certain time interval
between session appointments. This would be explained here.
**Start** and **End of test sessions** allows Castellum to offer an
approximate overview schedule of all studies in Calendar view at Study
management.
When adding a test session:
- Always give the session a **Name** and specify the **Duration of a session
in minutes** (duration will be used for appointment booking)
- Additionally, select the **Type** of the session and (if applicable at your
institute) select a **Ressource**
- **Additional text for reminder emails** allows you to provide information
to subjects prior to the actual appointment. You can send yourself a test
mail to check the appearance of session reminders by using the
corresponding button
- If your institute uses the external scheduler to schedule appointments, you
can enable it here (see :ref:`set-up-external-scheduler`)
For existing sessions a **Delete** button allows you to delete any test session
you created. Click on **Update** to review or edit session details.
Set up the recruitment process
------------------------------
Castellum offers three features to restrict which subjects are considered for
your study:
- Attribute filters
- Excluded studies
- Text based inclusion and exclusion criteria
At first it may be unclear how to distinguish **attribute filters** and
**inclusion/exclusion criteria**:
- Attribute filters are applied to subject attributes stored in
Castellum. In other words, this will only suggest matching potential
subjects in recruitment.
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria need to be used when there is no data
available about it in Castellum. Therefore, they must be checked by a
staff member explicitly during recruitment.
2. By clicking on **General** the **Recruitment text** will be shown to you.
- edit the **Recruitment text** (this text will be shown to recruiters
and will be used by them to recruit subjects for your study),
- decide whether you wish to set up the **Advanced filtering** (this
allows you to create multiple filtergroups that are not linked to each
other),
- set the function **Exclusive subjects** (If you select this feature,
potential subjects for your study cannot be recruited for other
studies. Please note that this may prevent other researchers from
finding enough participants.) and
- decide whether **Complete filter matches only** will be shown to the
recruiters of your study or if there will be some subjects displayed,
in which certain characteristics still have to be queried
3. By clicking on **Filter** you are able to set filter criteria
- select the attribute that should be used for filtering
You may set as many filters as you like.
Please note that **all filter criteria** set up within this filter
group have to be **fulfilled**. This also means that opposing filters
would result in an empty set.
Sometimes you need to define more than one mutually exclusive group of
suitable subjects. For this, you have to set up **advanced filtering** in
general recruitment settings to create various filter groups.
Subsequently, when you click on **Add new** in **Filters**, you are able to
set another filter group with specific filters. Alternatively, you could
duplicate an existing filter group and edit it afterwards.
.. admonition:: Example
This is necessary if you need subjects both at the age between 20-30
and 50-60. Again, note the distinction between **Any of these** and
**All of these**.
4. In **Excluded studies** you can select certain studies in which your
5. When you click on **Inclusion/exclusion criteria**, you can add
**additional subject characteristics that should be verified during the
recruitment**
Session types may come with specific criteria that have to be checked
every time before appointing subjects to a session. In this case,
you'll see a caret with a label **Criteria for: <type>** next to the
text field. Clicking on it will show you the text that is always
appended. In other words: You don't have to write this type specific
text by yourself.
6. To allow recruiters to send batch invitations via e-mail, proceed as
follows:
- click on **Mail Settings**
- define an **E-mail subject**
- add an **E-mail body**
This e-mail will be sent by recruiters at study recruitment by specifying
the amount of recipients. Yet, you can check the appearance of the set up
mail by sending a test mail to yourself with corresponding button.
It is not intended to send e-mail attachments via Castellum. Instead,
links can be inserted as standard text.
.. _study-members:
Manage study members
--------------------
If you want to give access to other staff members (e.g. recruiters) for your
study, please follow the steps below.
1. Go to the **Member management** tab
2. If you click on the field under **User**, you will be shown all possible
3. Select the user who is supposed to take over the recruitment
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
In order to start or stop a study, a Study Approver needs to follow these
steps:
1. :ref:`Find the study <study-search>` 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.
.. _study-finish:
Finish a study
==============
1. :ref:`Find the study <study-search>` 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.
All information related to potential subjects who were **not participating** in
the study will be deleted when the study is finished. Hence, if you finish
and then resume a study, it is possible that subjects that were already
found to be unsuitable are suggested again as potential subjects.
When a 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
Once you delete a study from Castellum it is no longer possible to answer to
export or delete requests from subjects. Make sure that all relevant external
has been deleted before you delete a study from Castellum. Then proceed as
1. :ref:`Find the study <study-search>` at the **Studies** page, click
**Details**
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**
.. _study-search:
Find your study
===============
Click on **Studies** on the front page
- By selecting **Mine** in **Membership**, you will see studies you created
or are a member of. Under the field **All** you can see all studies that
have been created.
- In the field **Search** you can look for a certain study
- By choosing a **Status** and / or a Study **Type**, you may also filter
studies