Consulting Services
DESCRIPTION FOR THOSE REQUESTING ASSISTANCE
PURPOSE
The Statistical Consulting Seminar offered through the Department of Mathematical Sciences, provides free statistical advice on University-related research projects. Any currently enrolled graduate student or faculty member at the university may request assistance. People asking for advice will be working with graduate students currently enrolled in the Department of Math Sciences Statistics MS, EES or PhD programs. Department of Math Sciences faculty are actively involved in an advisory role to the student consultants. When requesting assistance, please recognize that this service is not structured to provide overnight help. Most projects take 2-3 weeks to complete. If you are in a hurry, other arrangements can be made through the Department (but there may need to be a charge and availability is still not guaranteed).
REQUESTING ASSISTANCE
To request assistance you must complete this form and send an email to "kirvine AT usgs.gov". Assignment of projects is on a first-come-first-served basis. Projects are generally assigned within one week following the date of formal request during the semester. In the event that several requests for assistance are made at once, projects may wait up to two to three weeks before they are assigned (you will be notified if there will be a delay). If you are not contacted within three weeks by a consultant, call Kathi Irvine at 994 7492.
Very few consulting problems are taken care of during the initial meeting. Typically, the consultant familiarizes himself/herself with your project and the questions of interest during the initial meeting. Your project is then presented to the consulting group at the weekly meetings and/or discussed with the consulting supervisor or other faculty members. After discussing the problem, the consultant will meet with you to explain the advice given by the consulting group and faculty members. Occasionally three or more meetings are required.
The statistics graduate students who are providing assistance for a given term meet once a week to discuss current projects. New projects are also assigned at these meetings. Once a student consultant is assigned to your project, he/she will contact you within a few days to schedule an initial meeting. If you are in a hurry, other arrangements can be made through the Department (but, again, there may need to be a charge).
The end of the semester presents some additional complications. If your request for consulting is made at the end of a term, it is unlikely that we can provide a completed solution during that term. However, you should be assigned a consultant early the following semester or contacted about help outside of the seminar, which may involve an additional charge.
Please recognize that once your project is completed or the semester ends, whichever comes first, the statistics graduate student consultant is no longer responsible for providing advice through this service. If he/she is interested, you can work out a financial arrangement allowing the statistics graduate student to continue to assist you. If you need additional assistance in subsequent terms, please submit a new request to the consulting service.
TYPE OF ASSISTANCE PROVIDED
The assistance given is primarily advice. After gathering information and meeting with others, the consultant will advise you regarding your question. Consultants will not do data entry or statistical analyses for you without an additional charge. Other arrangements may be made through the Department for assistance of this type (but there may need to be a charge). The consultants can advise on many aspects of statistical design and analysis, including but not limited to, designing a study, database management, data exploration, formulating a statistical model, determining the type of analysis that should be done, advising on appropriate statistical software, and interpretation of analyses. This service is not to be used for homework problems or class projects. If additional assistance is needed, other arrangements can be made through the Department.
PREPARING FOR THE FIRST MEETING
The most helpful information will be a written summary of your problem (including your primary objective). Additional information that you feel would make the initial meeting more productive can be attached as well. Examples of such information include:
a copy of a research proposal (particularly sections that define the objectives of your research and the study design).
a diagram of the experimental layout and/or a map of areas to be sampled.
possible limitations in materials or time
scatterplots of the data.
tables of summary statistics.
computer output from statistical software.
The more the consultant knows about your project before the first meeting, the better he/she will understand your problem. At the initial meeting, the consultant will try to get a good understanding of your project (this is necessary before any advice can be offered). In order to avoid giving you incorrect advice, the consultant will need to ask about many details of your study – more details than you may think are needed. If feasible, consider meeting with the consultant at your lab or research area. See this handout titled "Information to obtain at the first meeting"
We appreciate feedback from those people using this consulting service. We are committed to continued improvement of the Statistical Consulting Seminar. If you have comments, please send them to Kathi Irvine .