Request a Consultation

Ideally, statistical consultation should occur before implementation of the research and several weeks prior to your personal deadlines. The development of a research project tends to take longer than expected. Before submitting your request, please review our acknowledgement and authorship page.

Graduate and undergraduate student requests

RStats respects the teacher/student relationship inherent in the education and development of a student's thesis or research project. Students who seek help with graded projects need to ask their advisor to sign the RStats Thesis and Research Approval Form.  This is relevant for any sort of work which is being prepared for submission for a grade or completion of degree. For student research projects, theses, and course requirements we provide the same support as that for faculty member, but serve primarily in an advisory capacity. RStats does not do data entry, data analysis, assess data integrity, and/or write up the statistical interpretations for student graded projects. RStats will provide guidance in each of the aforementioned activities. For any graded research the student must obtain written or oral permission from the advisor/instructor of record before we consult. It is preferred that the advisor attend the first consult meeting with their respective student or discuss with the RStats consultant the expected involvement of RStats.

Fee-for-service project support

Although RStats provides free consults for MSU faculty members and MSU students, on occasion there is greater need for statistical and experimental support (e.g., grant submissions, grant yearly reports, and/or publications), hence for such Project consulting a fee-for-service arrangement can be made. Faculty members and students working for not-for-profit granting agencies may choose to hire RStats personnel or research assistants to assist in experimental design, questionnaire development, data management, data analyses, power analyses, publication submissions, and so forth. Consultation agreements via MSU approved rates for project consulting may differ among clients depending on the source of funding. A consultation agreement that matches your situation can be discussed and arranged. If you are uncertain about how your funding source is classified, let us know so we can assist in determining an appropriate rate and account.

Sometimes researchers ask, "Are we required to include RStats in the budget of the project?" The answer is "No, but we wish you would consider it", especially if it seems probable that significant help from RStats would be valuable for the implementation and completion of the research project.