Last Updated:
25/01/2024 - 11:08

Laboratories

METU Psychology Department has four laboratories that are open to the use of all researchers. Rooms with Mirror, Bz7 Lab, Bz8c Lab.


Rooms With Mirror

Rooms with Mirror consist of two rooms locating in room 110 which is on the first floor of the Social Sciences Building. These rooms have mirrored glass and sound insulation. There are two types of furniture in the rooms.


BZ7 Lab

To go to this lab:

1) use the main entrance, go down the stairs, follow the right corridor, go down the stairs, get through the blue door, Bz7 Lab is on the right.

2) use canteen entrance, go down the stairs, get through the blue door, Bz7 Lab is on the right.

There are three rooms in this lab (two of them are sound insulated). Between two insulated sound rooms, there is a square meter sized mirrored glass and sound insulation system. All three rooms have computers and free tables. The computer at the entrance has an internet connection. First, the insulated room does not have an internet connection, but the equipment required for wired connection. Internet connection in the second room is not allowed to protect data collected from various experiments.

All computers have internet browsers and office programs. Furthermore, insulated computers have MatLab, Inquisit, and DirectRT for the use of researchers.


BZ8C Lab

To go to this lab:

1) use the main entrance, go down the stairs, follow the right corridor, go down the stairs, get through the blue door,  get through the blue door at right, Bz8c Lab is in front of you.

2) use canteen entrance, go down the stairs, get through the blue door, get through the blue door at right, Bz8c Lab is in front of you.

 In this lab, there are four cubic and three computers. All three computers have an internet connection, internet browsers, and office programs.


Laboratory Usage Processes

In order to allocate common-use laboratories, at the beginning of each semester, laboratory coordinators send an e-mail to the e-mail lists of (1) department faculty members, (2) research assistants, and (3) graduate students and expect the researchers to read and approve the "Laboratory Use Forms" created via Qualtrics. There is a minimum of 5 days between sending an e-mail and filling out Qualtrics forms. If participants who do not fill out the form within these 5 days want to use the laboratory later, they can only take a share of the available time slots in order not to disrupt the order of the researchers who are preparing their research.

Approximately 5 days after the Laboratory Use Forms are closed, the coordinators send an e-mail to the applying researchers and inform them of the meeting place and time to divide the laboratory usage time. Researchers who cannot attend this meeting may send a representative in their place. Researchers who cannot send a representative can write to the coordinators about the laboratory and time slots they request, but under no circumstances is there a guarantee that the requested space and time will be allocated.

Researchers meet at the determined place and time and divide the laboratory and time slot under the moderation of the coordinators. The following issues are taken into consideration here:

- Each researcher has the right to an equal share regardless of his/her title and the research he/she conducts.

- Researchers declare which laboratory they want to use. Every researcher has the right to request the laboratory he wants.

- Laboratory time slots (between 09.00 and 17.00 on weekdays) are shared equally among researchers who request that laboratory. In case of a time zone preference conflict, the schedule is arranged so that one researcher uses that time zone one week and the other researcher uses that time zone the other week. It is then divided among the researchers who request time slots between 17.00 and 23.30 on weekdays. Finally, weekends are distributed among those who request it. In case of a conflict of preferences, the procedure stated in the previous sentence is applied.

- This process is repeated for the other three laboratories.

- Each researcher first selects one of the four laboratories and shares their time slots. Then, after the distribution is made for all laboratories, they can apply for the time slots of the idle laboratories.

- Researchers only ask for time periods whose use they can guarantee. The requests of the researchers for the idle time periods for each laboratory are collected and distributed during the meeting. The remaining laboratories and time slots are reserved for researchers who may apply later.

- If there is no request to the contrary during the meeting, the distribution will be made until the middle of the semester. The exact date range is notified via e-mail by the coordinators before the meeting.

- If an extra meeting is requested during the meeting for various reasons (such as the researcher's course hours not being known, the interns not being known), only a 2-week division will be made at the first meeting. After two weeks, a meeting is held again, and the distribution is made again. Here, the end of the distribution date is the mid-term date communicated in the e-mail.

- Before the middle of the semester, the processes mentioned in bold above are repeated, and the process ends with the sharing process.

- This entire process is repeated three times a year: Fall semester, spring semester, and summer semester.

- After the laboratory sharing meeting, a WhatsApp group is established to ensure effective and rapid communication. Researchers who cannot use the time slot allocated to them can inform other researchers through this group, allowing them to use the laboratories.

- As of the 2018-2019 Summer period, in the future distribution periods, each researcher receives a share equal to the number of studies for which ethics committee approval has been obtained from laboratories.


For information and questions, you can send an e-mail to the following addresses:

Coordinator: Karya İlkim Ekiz – karya@metu.edu.tr

Responsible Faculty Member: Aslı Kılıç – askilic@metu.edu.tr