Partnership Guidelines
Expectations
Project Engagement
Data Science, Statistics, and Visualization (DSSV) projects are collaborative and require active participation from the research team. Researchers and DSSV staff will work together to outline project timelines, meetings, resources, and other requirements for a successful collaboration. Expect to meet weekly for most projects.
Projects significantly exceeding their expected timelines or delayed because required resources or researcher input are unavailable may be canceled.
Scope of Work
DSSV staff members focus on data science, statistics, programming, and visualization work to support research. DSSV staff are not available to assist with tasks such as manual data cleaning, literature reviews, maintenance of existing applications, research equipment support, development of curricular materials, or similar support activities.
Project and Data Preparation
Where applicable, the project lead should have appropriate IRB approvals before the project begins and update protocols to add DSSV collaborators, methods, tools, data storage platforms, and other resources needed. Project leads are also responsible for securing amendments to data access lists, data use agreements, and other contracts governing access to the project data. Research Computing and Data Services is happy to help with questions on handling these situations.
To effectively use DSSV staff time, data and other inputs required for a project should be available at the start of the project. If you plan to collect data in the future, still need to have data transferred from a partner or collaborator, or otherwise have work remaining to prepare data for analysis, please consider waiting to apply for support until you have the data available. Projects with data collection or processing as the primary focus are exceptions to this expectation.
Project Completion
At the end of the collaboration, the research team will assume responsibility for data sets, code, applications, and other project resources, including their maintenance and cost. DSSV staff only provide ongoing maintenance or updates to code, applications, or other resources through prior agreement.
Service Reporting and Publicity
Research Computing and Data Services publicly reports basic information on our collaborations and projects. We encourage open science practices where possible but keep unpublished research products private when requested. However, basic information on our projects, including those that may still be underway, is shared on our website and in reports on our team's work. For example, please see our portfolio of past projects.
Authorship and Acknowledgement
It is customary to offer authorship on publications whose core findings rely on the work of DSSV staff or that otherwise incorporate substantial contributions from DSSV staff to contributing staff members, including DSSV student data science consultants.
Authorship helps ensure that our staff and students receive appropriate recognition and credit for their expertise, experience, and work. It also demonstrates the impact of DSSV services on the Northwestern research community and helps ensure future funding for these services.
Please refer to the ICMJE and Nature authorship guidelines for further details on navigating authorship.
Authorship is generally not expected or warranted for the help received during short consultations or working group sessions, but acknowledgments of significant support are appreciated. Acknowledgments or image credits are usually the appropriate form of recognition for data visualizations.
When acknowledgments are warranted rather than authorship, please include the names of individuals and Northwestern IT Research Computing and Data Services as a group. Any financial support provided for the project, including for DSSV staff time, does not preclude authorship or acknowledgment considerations.
In addition to co-authoring research products with collaborators, DSSV staff may want to publish additional research products, such as software, that they created during a project or present on their work at conferences or other forums. DSSV staff will discuss such situations with the research project lead beforehand.