Troubleshooter Software

We support several research software that can be used by FSS employees and students. Below you find a troubleshooter with most common issues (as far as we know) per software package.

Stimulus presentation	:	E-Prime, Inquisit, Presentation and OpenSesame
Survey tools	:	Gorilla, Qualtrics and LimeSurvey
Data processing tools	:	BrainVision Analyzer, Matlab, R-Studio, Nvivo, CMA, Noldus Facereader, KALDI and Amberscript
Statistical tools	:	SPSS, JASP, Stata, Mplus, MLwiN and HLM
Miscellaneous	:	Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite*

* can be found in the Software Center for Windows UU-issued devices or in the UU Apps & Services application for macOS UU-issued devices
** pre-installed on most UU-issued devices

Troubleshooter Research Software

Research Software Troubleshooter

What type of software do you need troubleshooting?

Please choose your stimulus presentation research software

E-Prime

Inquisit

Presentation

OpenSesame

Please choose your survey research software

Gorilla

Qualtrics

LimeSurvey

Please choose your data processing research software

Please choose your statistical research software

Please choose your other research software

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Office

Adobe Creative Suite

What is E-Prime?
E-Prime is a comprehensive software package (Windows-only) for behavioural research. E-Prime allows you to construct experiments using a graphical interface.

Common issues with E-Prime
Below you will find a list of common issues with E-Prime.

This system is in violation with the license agreement
E-Prime requires a connection to the UU network via Ethernet cable or VPN to check your license for using E-Prime. Follow the steps below, continuing to each next when E-Prime works and contacting us if it doesn't. Please note the outcome of each step in you e-mail.

Try connecting your laptop to an Ethernet Cable at the Office and start E-prime
Try connecting to the internet using VPN on a wifi connection and start E-Prime
If you arrive here, E-Prime now works

Unable to obtain a valid refresh rate (Windows 10)

Download the attached experiment (RecalcRefreshRatePro.es2)
Open a new copy of E-Studio 2.0 and load RecalcExperiment.es2
Open a new copy of E-Studio 2.0 and load your experiment. You will now have two E-Studio instances open - one with RecalcExperiment.es2 and one with your experiment.
In your experiment, navigate to the Experiment Object Properties -> Devices -> Display Device and set the “Throw error if invalid refresh rate” property to No.
From RecalcExperiment, drag the InLine RecalculateRefreshRate over to your experiment and ensure it is the first object in SessionProc.
Run your experiment and confirm that no errors occur.
Review your data file and confirm the following: The Display.RefreshRate column has a value > 50 + in the first row of your data file, all values in .OnsetTime columns are greater than the Display.RefreshRate.ValidTime.

What is Inquisit?
Inquisit is a software package (Windows and Mac) that can be used to design and administer a range of cognitive, social, neurophysiological, and psychological experiments. Inquisit comes with an extensive library of psychological testing paradigms that can be used or customised for your purpose. In addition, Inquisit allows users to publish experiments online and collect data using a browser version of the experiment.

What is Presentation?
Presentation is a stimulus delivery and experiment control program (Windows-only) for neuroscience. It delivers auditory, visual and multimodal stimuli with millisecond temporal precision. Presentation support registration for almost any behavioral, psychological or physiological experiment using reaction time measures, eye movements, EEG, fMRI, MEG, and more. There's a Help Guide available which can help you with all your questions regarding Presentation.

What is OpenSesame?
OpenSesame is a free, Python-based program that allows users to create experiments using a user-friendly visual interface. OpenSesame works on most platforms and is compatible with a range of experimental hardware (eye-trackers, EEG equipment, etc.). The Tech Support Desk only provides very limited support for OpenSesame. However, the official OpenSesame website provides a range of tutorials and an active support forum.

What is Gorilla?

Gorillais a web-based surveying tool equipped with an intuitive graphical user interface which allows users to build behavioural experiments and collect behavioural data with accurate reaction times. They offer extensive documentation, a wide range of pre-built classical experiments and professional support.

Common issues
Below you find a list of common issues with Gorilla.

I have trouble using my new Gorilla account
If you experience any issues regarding activating your Gorilla account after receiving your activation link, try the following. Go to the Gorilla login page and click on Help! I forgot my password. Use your UU mail address and click Reset password. You will get another email where you can reset your password and login to Gorilla.

Do you offer Gorilla support?
We only manage Gorilla accounts. For more information about using Gorilla, please refer to the Gorilla Support website if you need Gorilla specific content.

What are Gorilla tokens and how can I request them?
In order to test participants in Gorilla, you will need tokens. One token equals one participating participant. Tokens can be acquired either from our Utrecht University subscription or when you have personally bought tokens through the Gorilla Token shop. Tokens from our subscription can be requested on your Gorilla account webpage.

Click on Request Tokens from Subscription, you will find a link with instructions there.

We work with a fair use policy. If you need more as 100 tokens, you will be prompted with a reason why you will need more than 100 tokens.

Participants cannot participate due to lack of tokens, how to fix this?
You don't need to make any changes to your experiment structure or contents to resolve this! Instead, go to your experiment Recruitment page and click on Change Recruitment Target. Below the Recruitment Target box, you will see the text "Transfer x tokens from your account to this experiment". If you click on the 'confirm' button below this text, it will transfer the tokens and unlock recruitment on the study.

What is Qualtrics?

Qualtrics is a web-based surveying tool that allows users to build questionnaires and collect behavioural responses.

Common issues
Below you find a list of common issues with Qualtrics.

Where can I get access to Qualtrics?
We don't issue Qualtrics accounts, but our colleagues at central IT (ITS) do. The UU has a campus wide Qualtrics license, available for use to all Students and Employees. Before you start using Qualtrics as a new user, please read the UU policies and agreements regarding to collection and processing of participants data.

How to activate your Qualtrics account?
To activate your account, you can browse to the Official UU Qualtrics website and log in using your Solis ID/student number and password. This login requires Two Factor Authentication for Students and Employees.

How to contact official Qualtrics Support?
Review the online documentation at Qualtrics Support. To contact the Qualtrics helpdesk, go to the Qualtrics Support Center, choose "Sign in with SSO", in the question "Enter your company's Organization ID" fill in "utrechtuniversity". The Helpdesk is available 24/7, by email, chat and telephone.

I have troubles with Qualtrics
If you experience any issues, please create a ticket in TOPdesk under (web)Applications. Or contact ITS by other means.

What is LimeSurvey?

LimeSurvey is a web-based survey application that allows users to develop and publish online surveys, collect responses, create statistics, and export the resulting data to other applications. You can use your Solis credentials to Log on to LimeSurvey. If it is your first time logging in, a new account will be instantly created for you and you can start right away.

Common issues
Below you find a list of common issues with LimeSurvey.

LimeSurvey old and new environment
A few people still use the old LimeSurvey environment (survey.fss.uu.nl). From the 15th of July 2019 nobody will be able to create a new survey on the old server. New surveys can only be made on the new server. You can still access your existing surveys at that time.

On the 16th of September 2019 we shall shut down the old server entirely, from that time all data can no longer be accessed. We chose a grace period of two months, as we think this will give active surveys enough time to wrap up and give the survey-owners a chance to back-up all their old data. If this creates a problem for your surveys, please let us know as soon as possible. Please back-up all your surveys before that time if you have not already done so.

More information about the old and new LimeSurvey servers can be found here in a PDF.

Do you offer LimeSurvey support?
For more information visit the intranet page, or contact the HTS App-team.

What is BrainVision Analyzer?

BrainVision Analyzer (BVA) is a software package (Windows-only) designed to process and analyse EEG data. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences has access to a limited number of concurrent use licences.

Common issues
Below you find a list of common issues with BrainVision Analyzer.

Error message concerning the HASP License Manager - Connection issues
Brain vision analyser requires a connection to the UU network via Ethernet cable or VPN to check your license for using Brain Vision Analyzer. Follow the steps below, continuing to each next step when Brain Vision Analyzer works and contacting us if it doesn't. Please note the outcome of each step in you e-mail.

Try connecting your laptop to an Ethernet Cable at the Office and start Brain Vision Analyzer
Try connecting to the internet using VPN on a wifi connection and start Brain Vision Analyzer
If you arrive here, Brain Vision Analyzer now works

Error message concerning the HASP License Manager - Limited Licenses
The number of concurrent user licences is limited. It is possible that all licences are currently in use, leaving no valid licences for your instance of Brain Vision Analyzer. Please wait a few hours and attempt to use Brain Vision Analyzer again.

What is Matlab?
MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a numerical computing environment and proprietary programming language developed by Mathworks. In addition to the base software, there is a wide range of toolbox that allow Matlab to be used for different purposes. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences has access to Matlab licenses. Installation and licensing of Matlab depends on the system you are working on.

Common issues
Below you find a list of common issues with Matlab.

What is Psychophysics Toolbox 3 (PTB-3)?
The PTB3 toolbox is commonly used to program experiments in Matlab for vision as well as neuroscience research. Instructions on how to install this toolbox can be found on their website. Make sure you also have GStreamer installed in addition with the latest display driver of your device.

What is R-Studio?
R is a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The R language is widely used among statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software and data analysis. As a result there are many available packages that support a wide range of statistical analysis. R is often combined with R-studio, an integrated development environment (IDE), to increase the ease of use.

What is NVivo?
NVivo is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) computer software package produced by QSR International. It has been designed for qualitative researchers working within very rich text-based and/or multimedia information, where deep levels of analysis on small or large volumes of data are required. NVivo is intended to help users organize and analyze non-numerical or unstructured data.

What is CMA?
Comprehesive meta-analysis (CMA) is a software package (Windows-Only) specifically designed for meta-analysis. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Science has one license.

What is Noldus FaceReader?
Noldus FaceReader is a software package (Windows-only) for analysing facial expressions. It can automatically analyses a range of facial expressions such as happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared, disgusted, neutral, contempt, boredom, interest, and confusion. It also calculates gaze direction, head orientation, and person characteristics. The software immediately analyzes your data (live, video, or still images), saving valuable time. In addition, expressions can be characterised using the the circumplex model of affect, describing the distribution of emotions in a 2D circular space containing arousal and valence dimensions.

What is KALDI?
KALDI is a web-based software package for creating speech-to-text transcriptions. It can automatically analyse a range of language sound files and transcribe it to text. More information can be found on the official KALDI website.

What is Amberscript?
Amberscript is an user friendly transcription tool which can handle various languages. With this tool you can automatically convert audio- and video files into text. Furthermore, the service now complies with the privacy and information security requirements of our university, so it is safe to use when you work with privacy sensitive data. Amberscript is managed by ITS and questions may be directed to them. Additionally, you can download the Amberscript manual here.

What is SPSS?
IBM SPSS Statistics is a software package (Windows & macOS) that offers a wide range of frequentist statistical analyses. SPSS can be operated using a graphic user interface or by programming analyses in the command syntax language. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences has access to unlimited SPSS licenses. Installation and licensing of SPSS depends on the system you are working on.

What is JASP?
Just Another Statistics Programme (JASP) is a free opensource analysis package (Windows, macOS & Linux) that supports both Frequentist and Bayesian versions of common statistical analyses.

Install JASP on your UU-issued office desktop or laptop

Download JASP from the official website
Install the software by following the instructions
If you experience any issues, please create a ticket in TOPdesk under (web)Applications. Or contact ITS by other means.

Install JASP on a LAB desktop or laptop

Download JASP from the official website
Install the software by following the instructions

What is Stata?
Stata is a general-purpose statistical software package created in 1985 by StataCorp. Stata's capabilities include data management, statistical analysis, graphics, simulations, regression, and custom programming. It also has a system to disseminate user-written programs that lets it grow continuously. Stata is a complete, integrated statistical software package that provides everything you need for data analysis, data management, and graphics. We provide network access to Stata.

Get access to Stata on Windows 10

Make sure you're connected to the internet via an Ethernet cable in your office, or via VPN on WiFi
In Windows Explorer, click ‘This PC’
Right Click in an empty space of Windows Explorer, and choose: Add a network location
Click Next
Click ‘Choose a custom network location’
Click Next
Use the following address in Internet or network address: soliscom.uu.nluudata
Click Next
Login using your (Solis-ID/studentnumber)@soliscom.uu.nl and solis-password.
Go to FSW -> Applications -> Stata15 -> win
Double click on 'StateSE-64' to start Stata

Get access to Stata on Mac

Make sure you're connected to the internet via an Ethernet cable in your office, or via VPN on WiFi
Click on Finder or on an empty space on your desktop
Next press command (⌘) + K to open the connect-to-server dialog box
In the 'Connect to server' dialog box, type: smb://soliscom.uu.nl/uu/data
Press Connect. *You can press the + symbol to store the network location for later use
Login as a registered user, using your (Solis-ID/studentnumber)@soliscom.uu.nl and solis-password
Go to FSW -> Applications -> Stata15 -> mac
Double click on 'StateSE' to start Stata

What is Mplus?
Mplus is a statistical modeling program (Windows, macOS & Linux) that provides researchers with a flexible tool to analyze their data. Mplus allows the analysis of both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, single-level and multilevel data, data that come from different populations with either observed or unobserved heterogeneity, and data that contain missing values. Analyses can be carried out for observed variables that are continuous, censored, binary, ordered categorical (ordinal), unordered categorical (nominal), counts, or combinations of these variable types. In addition, Mplus has extensive capabilities for Monte Carlo simulation studies, where data can be generated and analyzed according to any of the models included in the program.

What is MLwiN?
MLwiN is a statistical software package for fitting multilevel models. It uses both maximum likelihood estimation and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. MLwiN is based on an earlier package, MLn, but with a graphical user interface (as well as other additional features).

What is HLM?
HLM is a statistical software package designed to estimate hierarchical linear models. Hierarchical linear models, also called multilevel, random-effects, or mixed models, are appropriate for data with a nested structure. HLM is capable of estimating several types of parameters. Typical output includes estimates of fixed effects (regression coefficients) at the individual and grouping levels, as well as estimates of variance components describing the random coefficients. Additionally, HLM produces a residual file you can use for testing model assumptions and finding empirical Bayes estimates for the random level-1 coefficients. HLM can also estimate hierarchical generalized linear models for binary, ordered, categorical, and count-dependent variables.

What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams (in short, Teams) provides a useful tool to communicate with colleagues, students, and also participants. General information about working with Teams can be found here (installation and basic features) and here (Teams for education).

Common issues with Microsoft Teams
Below you will find a list of common issues with Microsoft Teams.

Public channels can be viewed by anyone of the UU
If a Team is set to public all members of the UU will be able to view your Team, channels, files, etc..

2FA for Employees
For a safe use of Microsoft Teams, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) will be implemented, for more information please click here.

Participants don't want to use any personal info
Teams has a tendency to automatically login with the previously used credentials. For participants to be anonymous they will need to log out from their previous session if they have Teams installed on their device. Anonymous links can be provided so participants don't need to give any personal information.

Install Microsoft Teams on your UU-issued office desktop or laptop

Search for and open the ‘Software Center’ Application
Search for Microsoft Teams, select and install the software
If you experience any issues, please create a ticket in TOPdesk under (web)Applications. Or contact ITS by other means.

Manually installing Microsoft Teams on any system
Every employee and student at Utrecht University has a license where you can install Microsoft Office 365 (including Microsoft Teams) on 5 devices of your own. For more information please check this manual.

Microsoft Teams as a research tool
Make sure that any team you create is ‘Private’ so that it is only visible for colleagues that you have manually added to the Team. Teams should be set to private by default, but we recommend checking the setting before starting data collection. Instructions on setting up a private team can be found here.

Recording meetings
Teams allows for the recording of conversations, with the option to download them later.

Avoiding participants gaining access to the recording
After recording a conversation, the file becomes visible in the chat for that particular meeting. Since anyone participating in a normal Teams meeting also has access to the chat this also gives them access to view (but not download) the recording, which may not be desirable. If you wish to avoid participants gaining access to the recorded video afterwards, you can work using a ‘team meeting’ with the participants as guests. Create a team (and if necessary, an individual channel for each experimenter). In this channel click the camera icon below the chat (‘Meet now’). This starts an empty meeting to which you can invite your participants by clicking 'show participants' and adding them as guests. As guests they do not have access to the chat and as such cannot see the file for the video recording.

Record audio only with Audacity
Alternatively, some users have been recording just the audio using Audacity. This results in smaller audio-only recording avoids storing data on the Microsoft cloud.

Saving Chat messages
Unfortunately, there is currently no support for downloading chat logs from Teams. Instead, you can save important single messages or send them to you Outlook by pressing the … in the messages window. Alternatively, you can copy-paste messages by hand to a suitable location.

Informed consent
Before collecting data from your participants, informed consent is required. More information on acquiring informed consent can be found here. The informed consent package in Qualtrics can be used to automatically link a participant to a team call after consenting.

What is Microsoft Office?
Microsoft Office 365 is a standard office package that consist of Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Outlook.

Common issues with Microsoft Office
Below you will find a list of common issues with Microsoft Teams.

2FA for Employees
For a safe use of Microsoft Office 365, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) will be implemented, for more information please click here.

Install Microsoft Office on your UU-issued office desktop or laptop

Search for and open the ‘Software Center’ Application
Search for Office, select and install the software
If you experience any issues, please create a ticket in TOPdesk under (web)Applications. Or contact ITS by other means.

Manually installing Office 365 on any system
Every employee and student at Utrecht University has a license where you can install Microsoft Office 365 on 5 devices of your own. For more information please check this manual.

What is Adobe Creative Suite?
Adobe Creative Software is a set of applications and services from Adobe Systems that gives subscribers access to a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, along with a set of mobile applications and also some optional cloud services.

Install Adobe Creative Suite on your UU-issued office desktop or laptop

Search for and open the ‘Software centre’ Application
Search for Adobe, select and install the software
If you experience any issues, please create a ticket in TOPdesk under (web)Applications. Or contact ITS by other means.

Adobe Creative Software on a desktop or laptop in the lab

Please use our Tech Support Desk contact form to request help to install Adobe software on your device.

Install research software on your UU-issued office desktop or laptop

Open the 'Software Center' Application
Search for your desired research software
Select and install the software
If you experience any issues, please create a ticket in TOPdesk under (web)Applications. Or contact ITS by other means.

Install research software on a LAB desktop or laptop
Please use our Tech Support Desk contact form and we will assist you in installing your desired research software on the LAB device.

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More information

Please use our Tech Support Desk contact form.