✨Avicenna April Update: Collaboration and Transparency

Hello Avicenna Community,

Let's pause to reflect on the beautiful journey of April. Throughout the last month, we've remained steady in our commitment to enhancing stability and usability, guided by your invaluable feedback. Your insights have been pivotal in addressing critical issues, ensuring a smoother experience for all. Moreover, we've worked hard on finalizing features from our pipeline. Explore some of the upcoming enhancements in the section titled 'What's Next?' below.

🌟 Introducing Comments on Survey Responses

We introduced a new feature that allows the researchers to add comments to survey responses, fostering seamless communication and collaboration among team members. Researchers can do it whether on the Activity Responses page or while editing survey responses on the Activity Sessions page.

For comprehensive details, see our guide on Commenting on Survey Responses.

🌟 Introducing Reason for Changes in Participants’ Data

Researchers can now activate a feature requiring them to provide reasons for any modifications directly affecting participants’ data. This includes alterations to participation periods, labels, sites, survey responses, and even dropping and deleting the participants. This enhancement ensures transparency and accountability, empowering researchers to validate the integrity of any changes made. Start with "Why?"!

For comprehensive details, see our guide on Capture Reason for Changes in Participants’ Data.

🚀 User Experience Improvements

Uploaded media survey answers in response history:
Corrected a bug where media answers (video, audio, and image) were displayed as Unanswered in the history of responses, whether on the Activity Responses page or while editing survey responses on the Activity Sessions page.
Publishing surveys not being reflected in the editor:
Resolved an issue where publishing surveys weren’t accurately reflected in the activity editor. Now, after publishing surveys, the Publish button gets disabled and the Draft version converts to a Published version without the need to refresh the page.
Updating editor’s content after importing a survey:
Fixed a bug preventing survey configurations (content, triggering logics, etc.) from being updated after importing a survey within the editor, ensuring changes are reflected properly.
Loading the Matrix Reasoning test:
Resolved an issue where the Matrix Reasoning activity failed to load on participant apps and participants faced an error message.
Study information not being displayed after opening the invitation link:
Fixed the flow for joining a new study, where the Android app failed to display study information after opening the invitation link.
Entering large study IDs:
Implemented a fix to prevent crashes on iOS apps when entering large numbers for study IDs (8+ digits) during the study join process. We fixed this for Android in our previous releases. Again, although we don’t have large study IDs at the moment (all are 5 digits or less), we’ve implemented a fix to prevent such crashes.
Reverting to the last published survey version:
Improved survey version management by removing the 'Revert to This Version" for the last published version, streamlining the process with a ‘Discard’ option for the draft version.
The old version of Roles and Permissions:
Removed the old version of Roles and Permission for all studies, replacing it with the new version featuring new and enhanced functionalities as the default.
Pedometer and motion-based activity recognition data collection logic on iOS:
We’ve modified our data collection cycle to address potential gaps in pedometer and motion-based activity recognition (MBAR) data. Now, on iOS, in the event of app termination, Avicenna will collect data from the most recent time it fetched pedometer or MBAR data.
Survey preview stability:
We’ve addressed an issue causing the survey preview to get stuck in an infinite loop. With this fix, the preview now displays the current survey version without any hiccups.
Layout direction in surveys:
We’ve fixed the layout direction of the surveys in our iOS app. Now, when the participant selects a right-to-left language (like Farsi) and the survey has translations in that language, the survey contents will be displayed in the expected direction.
Skipping the first question in surveys:
We’ve resolved an issue that was causing the first question in a survey to be skipped when the participant opens the survey using the web app. This issue, which resurfaced due to recent changes, has been swiftly addressed.
Submitting sessions after a study reload on iOS:
Previously, in some cases, submitted sessions would persist on the sessions list. This issue occurred when the study in the participant’s device was reloaded after the participant received a Session Released notification for a session, and after the reload, the participant opened and submitted the session by tapping on the notification. We’ve now resolved this issue, ensuring that sessions vanish as expected after submission.
Missing parts in Survey Schema:
We resolved an issue with missing components in the Avicenna Survey Schema, ensuring the successful importing of survey definition files that include public triggering logics and/or negative notification offsets.
Exported CSV unicode characters in Microsoft Excel:
We addressed an issue in exported CSV files where UTF-8 encoded characters were displaying incorrectly when those files were opened in Microsoft Excel. Also, we made sure CSVs now function properly in alternative spreadsheet tools like LibreOffice.
Session stats in Participation CSV exports:
We resolved an issue where exported CSV files lacked session statistics despite appropriate filters being set. Now, exported files accurately reflect session statistics, ensuring comprehensive data analysis.
Accessing sensor data from new studies on previous devices:
We fixed an issue where researchers of a study couldn’t access sensor data from participants who joined the study on a new device and continued using the previous device(s).
Sessions progress bar not showing blocked sessions:
We addressed an issue where the progress bar on the Activity Sessions page failed to display the stats for blocked sessions. Now, all session statuses, including blocked ones, are accurately reflected in the progress bar.

🔍 Reflecting on the Impact

Your experience with Avicenna is crucial to our growth. Each update aims to streamline your research, focusing on usability and efficiency. We strive to support your research effectively.

📣 We Value Your Feedback – And Your Stories

Have the updates improved your research? We encourage sharing your experiences on our Community Forum or via email. Your feedback helps shape our future updates and motivates the Avicenna community.

🌟 What's Next?

We remain dedicated to improving Avicenna. New features are in the pipeline, aiming to further enhance your research workflow. To name a few upcoming features, we're introducing:

New Enhanced Version of Our Authentication: We are improving our security measures to better safeguard your research data.
Recording Televisit Calls: Wouldn't it be useful to record calls with participants? In our upcoming release, you can just do that. This will substantially increase the quality and effectiveness of remote consultations.
Understanding Empty Responses in Surveys: Ever wonder why some survey questions are unanswered? You will see the reason behind each missing question response soon.
New Data Sources: Get ready to integrate data from WHOOP and Polar sensors into your research projects.
Detailed Mobile Device/App Status: Curious about the detailed status of your participants' mobile devices and apps? We're working on it to help you understand the participants' compliance better.
And More: Stay tuned for additional features and improvements, as we continue our mission to optimize your research experience.

Avicenna is about to get even better, and we're excited to reveal all the improvements to you.

Let's keep pushing the boundaries of research together.