Timeline is a web application created to allow participants in research studies to record and track behaviors of interest, including the specific aspects/circumstances of these behaviors and when they occurred. Timeline is based on an assessment tool that is commonly used in behavioral research called the Timeline Followback (TLFB; L. Sobell & Sobell, 1996; L. C. Sobell & Sobell, 1992). Using this tool, administrators can create a study with specific start and end dates, specify the specific recall window to be assessed (e.g., 7 days, 14 days, etc.), and identify custom behaviors to assess  (e.g., medication adherence, alcohol use, drug use). Administrators can also user-specific start dates to allow for rolling enrollment. 

Check out our video demonstration of Timeline below. 

Interested in learning more? These resources provide more details: 

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Timeline Followback, Drug/Alcohol Use
Timeline: A web app to help collect detailed health behavior data
Timeline Followback, Drug/Alcohol Use

Using a timeline followback (TLFB) to assess health behaviors such as alcohol and drug use, sexual behavior, and medication adherence has been around for decades. So how accurate is it? Comparing online monthly recall TLFB to daily dairy collection we see that timeline collection is valid for overall engagement in these health behaviors, but underreporting still occurs.

Timeline Followback, Drug/Alcohol Use
studying behavior, assessment
Asking participants to recount their behaviors day-by-day may help us study them
studying behavior, assessment

Not exactly ground-breaking, but a necessary part of science! We're always trying to sort out the best way to study behaviors, especially because it's pretty tricky when people may be embarrassed about them or have a tough time remembering them. In this paper, we showed that one useful approach to collecting data about sensitive behaviors is to ask participants to recount them, day-by-day. 

studying behavior, assessment