Lab scheduling

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The PhonLab uses a shared Google calendar for reserving Lab resources. This system is fairly informal and intended to be collegial, so please be considerate of others when resolving conflicts.

Use the online calendar to reserve:

  • Lab rooms
  • recording equipment
  • subject stations for perception experiments
  • workstation/equipment for production experiments
  • Lab computers
  • other Lab equipment


Each lab has its own google calendar. If you do not have access to the calendars, please speak with Ronald Sprouse. Only faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students working on honors theses have access to the lab calendars. In particular, LRAPs and URAPs must book time through their supervisors.

To use a given lab at a given time, access the calendar associated with the room, and block out the time required (important: consider whether you need time to set up or clean up). In the description, include the following information

  • Activity (experiment, meeting, etc.)
  • Any specialized equipment
  • Contact person (your name plus your LRAP's name if LRAP is running in your place)
  • Whether the activity could potentially be moved to another location (L)
  • Whether the activity could potentially be moved to another time (T)

For instance, lab meetings will show, in their descriptions, “Lab Meeting - Susan”. An ultrasound experiment in 52 might read “Exp - ultrasound - Susan (T)”. A research meeting with URAPs that could be physically moved to a different room might read “URAP meeting - Susan (L)”.

For any given lab, please try to limit your experiment hours to 8hrs/week and your total booked hours across all labs to 12hrs/week during business hours (weekdays 9am-5pm).

Confidential information should never appear in the calendar. Do not include subject names or contact information when reserving slots for running experiments, for instance. To do so would violate your CPHS protocols!

Avoiding WorkFit events

If you are concerned about avoiding the WorkFit exercise classes that take place near the Phonlab for a few hours every week, consult the class schedule found on the WorkFit Schedule page. A new schedule is published every semester.

Subject scheduling database

The Lab's Subject Scheduling Database is used to create sign-up slots for your experiment subjects. You specify your available times to run subjects, and then you can tell participants to "please visit the experiments" web page to choose a time. This is most helpful when you need to schedule a lot of people. The database software will send an e-mail message the day before the experiment both to the subject and to you.

This database is only for communicating with potential subjects; you must also reserve the experiment resources (room/equipment) in the Lab calendar, as described above.

Only experiment adminstrators can create and modify experiments and associated time slots. Contact Ronald Sprouse if you are unable to authenticate as an administrator.

When you create an experiment, choose your dates carefully. The software will let you enter illegal dates (e.g. dates in the past; Feb. 31) but will then fail to display your experiment. Also, your experiment will disappear from the list once the end date is reached. If your experiment disappears before you have completed running subjects, simply create a new experiment and set of time slots.

Experiment volunteers

The Lab maintains a list of subjects who have expressed an interest in participating in speech experiments. Consult Ronald Sprouse for access to this list.