Terminology
Activity
An interaction or task performed by participants in your study, such as completing surveys, engaging in cognitive tasks, or logging daily diaries. The types of activities are predefined by Avicenna, but their content can be modified by researchers to meet the specific goals of their study.
See Activity.
Audit Logs
The logs recorded by Avicenna from the participant's or researcher's interactions with the study, providing evidence of user actions and events for tracking and analysis.
See Audit Trail.
Background App
Refers to a state of the Avicenna app for Android or iOS, when it's not visible on the phone's screen, but it is operational behind the scenes. The app in this state can still collect sensor data or prompt notifications. This is the opposite of the Foreground App state.
Blocked Session
Avicenna app can only have one active session for a given activity at any given time. For example, if a study contains a survey for a health check that is prompted to participants once a day, before the session for the new day is prompted, the session for the previous day should be concluded. If the session for the last day is still active and awaiting the participant's response, the new session will be marked as Blocked.
See Blocked Sessions.
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.
Any responses provided by the respondents up to the time they cancel the survey will be uploaded and will be available in your study.
See Session Statuses.
Closed Study
A state of a study, in which no new participant can join the study. In this state, currently enrolled participants can continue their participation without any interruption.
See Enrollment Types.
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.
See Cognitive Tasks.
Completed Session
A session that is completed by the participant or researcher. For example, in the case of survey activities, a survey session is completed when the participant or researcher responds to all presented questions and presses the Submit button.
See Session Statuses.
Consent Material
The content outlining the study's purpose, procedures, and participant rights. Must be reviewed and agreed upon by participants before joining, ensuring ethical standards are met. Participants can always access this via the Avicenna app.
See Create a New Study.
Criteria
A conditional expression or a formula that 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.
See Criteria.
Data Source
A type of data that is automatically collected from participants without their involvement. Examples include sensor-based data such as motion data via accelerometer, location via GPS, or heart rate via wearables. It also can include digital footprints such as screen time or app usage.
See Data Sources.
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.
See Participation.
Device Operation Percentage
The percentage of the time that the Avicenna app was running, in the foreground or the background, collecting sensor data.
See Participation.
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.
See Publish Surveys.
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.
See Dropout Survey.
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.
See Eligibility Survey.
Enrolment Status
Indicates whether a study is open to new participants, closed, or invite-only.
See Enrollment Types.
Expired Session
Sessions are marked as Expired when not completed within the set timeframe. Any responses provided up to the expiration time will be uploaded and will be available in your study.
See Expired Sessions and Expiry Time.
Expiry Duration
The duration allocated for completing a session, after which it becomes expired.
See Expired Sessions and Expiry Time.
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 of the Background App state.
In Progress Session
This status indicates the session has started by the participant and some questions have already been responded to, but it's not completed yet.
See Session Statuses.
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.
See Enrollment Types.
Join Time
Indicates the date and time when a participant joins the study. This does not get updated if the participant rejoins the study after dropping out or getting dropped out by the researcher.
Also, the join time does not necessarily mean the start of data collection. The data collection starts at the Participation Start Time.
Notification
An alerting message sent to a participant or a researcher. A notification is created either from a template or manually sent from the Notification page on 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.
See Notifications.
Notification Medium
A medium through which notifications are sent, including email, SMS, and in-app messages.
See Notifications.
Notification Template
A template for a notification, that specifies the recipient of the notification, the event that should trigger the notification, the offset of the notification based on the occurrence of the event, the criteria under which the notification should be prompted, the mediums through which the notification should be sent, and the content of the notification for each medium.
Participant
Participants, or respondents, are individuals who have consented to join your study 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.
Participation Duration
This refers to the number of days that participants will be part of the study and provide data.
See Participation Period.
Participation Period
The Participation Period comprises from the Participation Start Time to the 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 the Participation Start Time is reached. If a participant joins the study after the 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.
See Participation Period.
Proximity Triggering Logic
A triggering logic that prompts a given activity when the 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.
See Proximity Triggering Logic.
Public Study
A state of a study, in which anyone can join the study, whether they hold an invitation or not.
See Enrollment Types.
Registration Code
A code participants should enter to find your study within Avicenna and enroll in it. Participants can enroll in your study in different ways, including a URL, QR code, or registration code.
See Study Enrollment.
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 with a researcher account. They also cannot log in 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.
See Creating a Researcher-Defined Session.
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 completes a cognitive task, the data is stored as a cognitive task session.
See Activity Sessions.
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.
See Create a New Study.
Study ID
A unique identifier for the study within the Avicenna platform. Participants can find and join the study by entering the ID of the study.
See Study Enrollment.
Study URL
A URL participants can use to enroll in the study.
See Study Enrollment.
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.
See Surveys.
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, and TLs.
See Survey Versions, Import and Export.
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 detail, this is the time when the activity is prompted to the participants 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' data.
See Triggering Logics.
Unanswered Session
This status indicates Avicenna does not know the status of the session yet. The unanswered sessions are generally divided into two groups: those whose scheduled time has not arrived yet, and those whose scheduled time has already passed.
If the scheduled time of a session has 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 prompts it if the criteria is true. If the criteria is not true, the session will be skipped and it will be treated as a non-existent session.
If the scheduled time of the session has already arrived, but the status is still Unanswered, 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 an 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 Unanswered. Avicenna server updates the status immediately after it receives it from the participant's device.
See Session Statuses.
Unknown Session
Please refer to Unanswered Session.
Upcoming Session
Please refer to Unanswered 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 that instructs Avicenna to give the option of starting an activity and repeating it as many times as desired to the participants. In detail, Avicenna adds a button to the participant's homepage on the app, then participants can launch an activity via that button at any time.