Why a software needs to be approved by the University?

The University is trying to manage the number of software applications used for research so that applications are fit for purpose, secure and, importantly, enable us to comply with our obligations under the GDPR and other data protection laws.


What if the software I need is not approved/provided by HWU?

The software applications listed below are the ones approved by HWU for research for the reasons mentioned above. For psychological research, these applications cover a wide range of data collection methods and data analysis tools.

If an application is not listed below or at HWU IT Essesntials page then kindly email ishelp@hw.ac.uk and ask whether the software you need is already licenced by the University for the intended use. If not, and there is a wide interest for it i.e. needed by a whole dept or School, then email your local tech support listed below (for psychology staff and students only). 

Please note:

• individual requests will not be considered i.e. a staff member or student requests an application to be approved for their own individual project.

• the application process may take weeks or months to be considered and the local technicians do not have control over it - applications are processed by the Information Governance team.

Local psychology technicians:

• Edinburgh Campus - Yiannis (Ioannis) Argyropoulos
• Dubai Campus - Aman Key Yekani, Hajar
• Malaysia Campus - Zulkipli, Aisyah

 

For online surveys we use Qualtrics. 

School of Social Sciences (SoSS) and MACS pay for the license and it is only available their staff & students.

If you are a SoSS student/staff you can create an account yourself by following these instructions.

Note:

• Do not just visit the Qualtrics homepage to create an account - you will end up with a trial account (see below). The instrcutions provide above shows the correct way to do it.
• If you are a non SoSS/MACS student and create an account, your accout will be deleted without warning and any data will be lost permanently.

 

If you have accidentally created a trial account AND you have built a survey using the trial account AND you collected data using the trial account:

1. Yiannis cannot move data between a trial account and a HWU licensed account. You will need to contact Qualtrics support yourself (instructions HWU login is required). Let Yiannis know that you plan to contact Qualtrics - Qualtrics will contact Yiannis to ask for permission to move your data between the trial and the HWU licensed account and he needs to know your name.

If you have accidentally created a trial account AND you have built a survey using the trial account BUT you have not collected any data yet:

1. In your trial account export your survey as .qsf (instructions)
2. Deactivate your trial account (instructions)
3. Create a full HWU-license based Qultrics account (instructions)
4. In your HWU-based Qualtrics account import your survey (instructions)

Click HERE for an FAQ on Qualtrics (updated 18/10/2021). In the majority of cases this is all you need to build your own survey. It is recommended to meet the Yiannis after you finish to go over it together.

We have a pool of psychological scales converted into Qualtrics surveys. To access this pool visit LINK (HWU login is required). 

For instructions on how to import these surveys into your own HWU Qualtrics account visit LINK (HWU login is required).

Note: If you plan to also use StReP to recruit participants contact the technician to link the the two together. Do not attempt to publish your survey before you meet him.

Local psychology technicians:

• Edinburgh Campus - Yiannis (Ioannis) Argyropoulos
• Dubai Campus - Aman Key Yekani, Hajar
• Malaysia Campus - Zulkipli, Aisyah

Interviews

Currently only MS Teams is approved for online interviews. MS Teams is available to all staff and students at HWU. MS Teams can also be used by users who do not have an O365 subscription e.g. your participants - see HERE for instructions.

Transcriptions

You can use MS Teams to both record your interiews and obtain their transcriptions. See HERE for instructions.
 
Alternatively, you can use either MS Teams and video record the interview or other means e.g. a dictaphone and then use either or both of the services described below.

• Online MS Word (part of our O365 subscription).
  This will work only with the online version of MS Word. See HERE for instrcutions.
  Pros:
  It is fast, it accepts both audio and video, speaker "identification", transcriptions and audio files are saved in your OneDrive for Business account, you can edit the transcript afterwards, supports .mp3, .wav, .m4a, or .mp4 files
  Cons:
  There is limit of 5 hours of transcription per month and 200mb per uploaded file - source. Only files in US-EN language can be transcribed. 

• MS Stream (part of our O365 subscription).
  
  If you use MS Teams to video record the interview, the recording will be automatically saved in your MS Stream account and generate the captions by itself.
  
  If you have obtained the audio or video file outwith MS Teams you can upload it to MS Stream and get the transcription from that file. Stream is available to all staff and students at HWU. Download this tutorial to guide you through the process of getting the transcript from your audio.
  
  Pros:
  More languages can be transcribed - English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish 
  Cons:
  It is slow to transcribe/generate captions (it takes at least twice the length of the file duration). You can only upload video files; if you have audio files you need to convert them into video files - see tutorial above. Only MP4 and WMV video files are currently supported for automatic transcripts.

NOTE: It is strongly recommended that you first test and familiarise yourself with the services listed above before your start collecting data.

PsychoPy/Pavlovia is an experiment builder and data collection tool.

PsychoPy is a Desktop software that allows you to build experiments, run them in your computer and collect data.

For online data collection you need to create an account with Pavlovia. The Psychology dept pays an annual subscirption so Psychology staff and students can recruit unlimited number of participants (the platform does not offer you partcipants).

Contact the local tech support for information on how to create an account based on our license.
 
You can use PsychoPy/Pavlovia i.e. it is an approved software, given that your local technician reviews your PsychoPy project.

Local Psychology technicians:

• Edinburgh Campus - Yiannis (Ioannis) Argyropoulos
• Dubai Campus - Aman Key Yekani, Hajar
• Malaysia Campus - Zulkipli, Aisyah

Please note: Depending on the requirements of your experiment, knowledge of Python and Javascript may be required. The tech support may not have the resourcces to support all students who want to use PsychoPy/Pavlovia for their projects. 

Psytoolkit is an online experiment builder, survey platform and data collection tool. It is free to use.

It has an extensive library of ready-made surveys and experiments but you may need to edit them to suit your requirements.

It may require that you learn the syntax to either create an experiment/survey from scratch or edit existing ones. 

You can use Psytoolkit i.e. it is an approved software, given that your local technician reviews your Psytoolkit project.

Local psychology technicians:

• Edinburgh Campus - Yiannis (Ioannis) Argyropoulos
• Dubai Campus - Aman Key Yekani, Hajar
• Malaysia Campus - Zulkipli, Aisyah

NVivo is a qualitative data analysis tool. It is used for organising your data, whether this is text, audio (e.g. interviews), video or other formats.

It can also help with organising your literature review and finding common themes.

You can download NVivo for home use for free by visiting the HWU's NVivo page and by following the instructions in the same page. Currently, only NVivo version 12 is supported by HWU.

If you have any issues downloading, installing or authorising your software you must contact ishelp@hw.ac.uk

For quantitative data analysis you can use SPSS. It is provided for free by HWU.

Visit HWU's SPSS page for information on how to download, install and activate SPSS for home use.

Matlab is a high level programmin language. In psychological research you can use Matlab to build your experiment, collect data locally and analyse your data.

If you are not familiar with Matlab or you are not an experienced programmer, it is not a recommended application as it has a rather steep learning curve.

It is provided by HWU for free.

For instructions on how to download, install and activate Matlab visit HWU IT Essentials page. 

If the application you are interested in using for your project is not listed above, you may want to visit HWU's software page where you can find a list of other applications.