Creating and editing the experiment on Gitlab and Pavlovia

Creating and editing the experiment on Gitlab and Pavlovia

Copying the experiment

The original copy of the tasks can be found here.
To make edits to the files in the repository, you will need a copy of the original on your account. You can do this by using the following steps:

1. Create a New Project:
   • Go to your GitLab dashboard.
   • Click on the "+" button in the top navigation bar.
   • Select "New project."
2. Choose Import Project:
   • In the "Create a project" page, select the "Repo by URL" tab.
3. Provide Source Repository URL:
   • Enter the URL of the original copy of the tasks https://github.com/RSE-Sheffield/jacobs-tasks.git in the "Git repository URL" field.
4. Configure Project Settings:
   • Fill in the project details, such as project name, path, and visibility level.
   • Optionally, change the project name to something that will help you remember what study is being run (e.g. Study1-Encoding-Time)
5. Click "Create Project":
   • Click the "Create project" button.

This will then create a copy of the experiment on your GitLab account which will also show up on your Pavlovia dashboard.

Modifying the experiment

You can modify the experiment on GitLab using the WebIDE.
If, for example, we wanted to adjust the starting number of stimuli in task 1, then we would need to modify the value of startValue in the config/expt1_config.js file. You can do this using the following steps:

1. Open the WebIDE
   • Click the "WebIDE" button found on the main page of your repository
2. Navigate to the config/expt1_config.js file
   • Click the "config" directory in the sidebar on the left
   • Click the "expt1_config.js" file that appears under the "config" directory
   • You should see the contents of "expt1_config.js" appear in the main part of the window
3. Edit the value of interest
   • Change the value after startValue from 2 to 4 (it should look like this when you're done: startValue: 4,)
4. Commit your changes
   • When you make your change the "Commit..." button at the bottom of the left side bar should become active and turn blue
   • Click the "Commit button..."
   • A pane should appear asing for a commit message and giving you the option of which branch to commit your changes to
     • The commit message is optional so we will leave it unaltered, but can be useful in recording why you made the changes for future reference
     • You should change the branch you want to commit to to: "Commit to the ... branch" rather than creating a new branch
   • Click the green "Commit" button and your changes will be saved.
5. Check your changes have altered the experiment on Pavlovia
   • Be sure to test any changes you make by piloting the experiment on Pavlovia before setting it live for participants
   • It can take a few minutes for Palovia to pick up any changes made, so if you don't see them immediately then try again in 5 mins.

You can use the WebIDE to make multiple changes at a time, as well as create and upload new files.