Additional Configurations

LORIS instruments support additional optional configurations. These configurations can alter the access or presentation of the instrument in the browser. Make sure to read the sections below carefully for a detailed description of each functionality.

Permissions

Instrument permissions offer the option to restrict access to a specific instrument to users having a specific permission. In order to use this feature, the project/config.xml file will need to be modified to include the association between the instrument and the permission. The code section below is a copy of the instrument permissions section from the config.xml file.

In order to enable permissions, the <useInstrumentPermissions> tag value should be change to true and a new <instrument> tag will need to be added for every instrument-permission association. In the example below, instrument sampleInstrument is associated to the sampleInstrumentPermissionName permission and sampleInstrument2 is associated to the sampleInstrument2PermissionName permission.

<instrumentPermissions>
    <useInstrumentPermissions>true</useInstrumentPermissions>
    <instrument>
        <Test_name>sampleInstrument</Test_name>
        <permission>sampleInstrumentPermissionName</permission>
    </instrument>
    <instrument>
        <Test_name>sampleInstrument2</Test_name>
        <permission>sampleInstrument2PermissionName</permission>
    </instrument>
</instrumentPermissions>

NOTE: Leaving the useInstrumentPermissions as the default (false) will grant all users having access to the timepoint access to all instruments at this timepoint. Setting the value to true will only affect instruments added to an <instrument> tag, instruments not specifically mentioned will not be affected.

Certification

Instrument certification is a feature by which some instruments can only be completed, in a clinical setting, by a certified examiner. For that reason, LORIS will limit the examiner options available in the instrument to "certified" examiners (For more details about examiners, see Adding Examiners in the Getting Started section).

In order to use this functionality, the EnableCertification flag must first be enabled by changing the 0 to 1 in the project/config.xml configuration file. The next step is to complete the CertificationProjects section by adding a new <CertificationProject> tag for every project using the certification functionality. Finally, a new <test> tag should be added for each instrument using this feature under the <CertificationInstruments> parent tag. In the example below the instrument certification feature is enabled for projects 1 and 5 and instrument "sampleInstrument".

<Certification>
    <EnableCertification>1</EnableCertification>
    <CertificationProjects>
        <CertificationProject>1</CertificationProject>
        <CertificationProject>5</CertificationProject>
    </CertificationProjects>
    <CertificationInstruments>
        <test value="sampleInstrument">Sample Instrument Display Name</test>
    </CertificationInstruments>
</Certification>

NOTES: - The projects listed in the CertificationProjects section are the identifiers of the projects derived from the Project table of the database. - The syntax of the <test> tag is important. The tag must have a value attribute set to the "testname" found in the test_names table of the database. The instrument's display name should be added between the open and the closing tag as seen in the example above.

Surveys

Survey Instruments allow participants to enter the data directly in the instrument without going through an examiner or a data-entry personnel. Study coordinators can use the front-end Survey module to create a unique survey key for each instrument for each participant and email the survey to a participant. Survey functionality can be enabled on a per instrument basis.

In order to make an instrument "Survey ready", the isDirectEntry field of the database's test_names table must be set to 1; alternatively the value can be set to 0 or NULL if the instrument is not designed to be completed by the participants themselves.

Instruments completed as a survey by the participant are still displayed in the instrument list of a timepoint and are highlighted in green to be distinguished from non-survey instruments in the same timepoint.

NOTE: Instruments meant to be sent out to participants as surveys should not be added to a visit's test battery otherwise coordinators will not be able to create the surveys from the survey module (For more information about test batteries, navigate to the Test Battery section directly or continue following the documentation).

Exclusion

Excluded instruments are instruments which are designed not to be parsed and included in the study's data dictionary. Excluding an instrument also precludes it from being exported to the Data Query Tool at the data dissemination stage.

In order to exclude an instrument it must be added to the "Excluded Instruments" list of the Configuration module under the "Study" tab.