✨Avicenna December Update: Wrapping Up 2024

Hello, Avicenna Community, and Happy New Year! 🎉🎄🌟🎁

2024 ended. Hopefully, we will see the end of 2025 and many more years. We need that elixir of life, not as a wizard thing but with science and data, just as Avicenna (Ibn Sina) pioneered. Come on, researchers and scientists!

Looking back at 2024, we celebrated many achievements: we launched approximately 20 features—several of them quite complex—and made over 250 enhancements and bug fixes. We've also prioritized stability, focusing on product integrity and security, resulting in an ISO certification.

Overall, I think we did most of what we planned to do. But there is always room for improvement, and there are always unplanned surprises affecting our progress. Anyway, we will be much better by the end of 2025. Promise!

In December, besides improvements and bug fixes, we also introduced two new features we promised before. Hope you find them valuable.

Here's what we've achieved in the last month of 2024:

🚀 New Features

• Device lock/unlock state
  We’ve updated the Screen State data source for Android and iOS to include device lock/unlock state tracking. It now records when the display turns on/off and when the device locks/unlocks. For more details, please refer to our Learn website.
• Working Memory Updating
  We introduced the Working Memory Updating (WMU) cognitive task that tests participants’ ability to update numbers in their working memory through sequential arithmetic operations. Find out more on our Learn website.

🌟 Improvements

• License upgrade permission
  We’ve removed the restriction that only the study owner can request an upgrade on their study’s license via the researcher dashboard.
• Clearer error message for researcher addition
  We’ve improved the error message displayed when a researcher tries to add a participant account to a study’s researchers list. Instead of stating that the user is not registered in Avicenna, it now accurately informs users that the email address is already registered as a participant, reducing confusion.

🐞 Bug Fixes

• Deleting participants
  We addressed an issue where researchers were unable to delete registrations involving more than a few dozen sessions. This fix resolves the issue, at least partially, and we’ll revisit and improve it in the future.
• Crash on rapid activity tapping
  We fixed an issue in the participant iOS app where participants could cause a crash by tapping on an activity multiple times quickly on the home page and interacting with those multiple activity instances, except the last one.
• Survey flow based on answer’s Next Section
  We fixed a bug in the participant web app where selecting an answer in multiple-answer or single-answer questions did not affect the subsequent sections’ flow as intended, based on their Next Section property.
• Survey flow with answers to choice-based questions
  Related to the previous fix, we addressed an issue on the participant web app where selecting “Finish the Survey” for the Next Section ID of answers in choice-based questions ended the survey prematurely, skipping the remaining questions in the same section.
• Evaluation of _since_reg_ tokens in criteria
  We fixed this issue about two months ago. However, after the optimization and caching we introduced last month, this bug resurfaced. We fixed it again quickly.
• Opening Time-Use activities
  We resolved an issue where attempting to take a Time-Use activity on the participant web app resulted in an error, preventing access. We also ensured that participants can create and submit events for these activities.
• Joining a study with a past end time
  We fixed an issue in participant Android and iOS apps where attempting to join a study with a past end date resulted in unclear error messages. Now, the error message accurately reflects the issue.
• Data sources on consent form
  We addressed an issue on the participant Android app where data sources added by researchers were not displayed on the consent form that participants see before joining the study.
• Crash with VAS decimals on specific devices
  We fixed a crash on the participant Android app related to VAS questions in surveys. On devices using a comma instead of a dot for the decimal point (due to localization settings), attempting to set a decimal answer caused the app to crash.
• Periodic reload timing
  We’ve adjusted the iOS app to ensure the 30-day periodic study-reload schedule is set only after a successful study-reload, preventing postponement of the next periodic reloads in case a reload fails.
• UI issues with data filtering components
  We fixed a bug where the cursor incorrectly displayed as a “hand” over disabled buttons/icons like “Filter” and “Export as CSV” on the researcher dashboard. Additionally, the “Create New Filter” button is now fully visible in the Manage Filters dialog.
• Sort button on the Participation table
  We fixed an issue on the researcher dashboard’s Participation table where columns like first name, last name, email address, and end time incorrectly displayed a sort button despite being sortable using the data filtering.
• Crash on full-screen text input
  We resolved an issue in the participant Android app where attempting to enter answers for Text questions in surveys could cause the app to crash in rare cases when the input switched to full-screen mode. This was due to memory management issues, which have now been addressed.
• Data loss with SIMH-tape-data files
  We’ve fixed data-loss issues from over 10 Android devices of specific vendors sending files as SIMH-tape-data MIME type. These files (used for sensor data and logs) weren’t initially whitelisted on our webserver.

🔧 Technical Updates

• Enhanced testing workflows
  We’ve revisited our testing workflows to enhance quality assurance. For automated testing, we’re dedicating more time to prevent bugs, focusing first on main areas like surveys. Manual testing has been optimized to ensure testers concentrate on core parts and components potentially impacted by recent changes.

🔍 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:

• Reset Participation: As a next step to the Test Participants feature we introduced before, test participants will be able to reset their participation and start as new participants in the study right within the app.
• Geofencing Triggering Logic: You will be able to define triggering logics for your activities based on the user's interaction with some geofences.
• Map Question Type: Related to the previous item, you will be able to ask your participants about some map locations or areas in your surveys. And you will be able to link those areas to the geofencing triggering logics.
• Matrix Question Type: You asked. We responded. You will be able to ask Matrix questions in your surveys to better capture nuanced answers and improve the depth of data collected from participants.
• Surveys Form Mode: Ever wanted to show a whole survey section instead of one question per page? You will see the option in your survey editor.
• And more: Stay tuned for additional features and improvements as we continue our mission to optimize your research experience.

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

Let's keep pushing the boundaries of research together.