TRC is committed to providing high quality services in support of the faculty research occurring at Tuck. To accomplish this task, we offer the following recommendations for our research support activities.
Notify each other of deadlines. We realize that Tuck faculty research activities are often time sensitive, and appreciate notification of pressing deadlines at the beginning of the project. In case of delays, we will make every effort to communicate with you when we will have your project completed, and the difficulties that we are encountering. If the timeline is nevertheless unacceptable to you, we will provide names of people to whom these activities can be outsourced, and assist you in transferring the project.
Tell us your problems with our service provision. If the faculty member has a problem with the level or quality of service, please attempt to resolve this difficulty with the TRC staff person. If resolution cannot be reached, please inform Stan in writing about the nature of the difficulty. Every attempt will be made to resolve the difficulty.
Tell us about acknowledgments. If you intend to provide acknowledgment for TRC services in published material for a particular TRC staff member(s), please discuss this with them. Keep in mind that professional ethics should prompt you to consider including a TRC member as an author on resulting publications if the staff member's contribution warrants it.
Develop individual schedule and work style with TRC member. Each TRC member provides different types of research services, and thus works very differently at their tasks. Once a task list for a project is generated, the TRC person will accomplish those tasks as efficiently and effectively as possible. Faculty members are encouraged to work with TRC personnel in developing a work style and schedule that is amenable to both parties.
Indulge TRC Recommendations/Concerns, and then do what you want. TRC staff members are committed to providing high quality service. At times TRC staff may make recommendations for project improvement or express concerns about requests related to the research project. These activities are simply meant to make the faculty aware of alternative strategies, or potential issues that might prove to be problematic.
Monitor non-Tuck collaborators' use of TRC resources and services. Tuck faculty can request that non-Tuck collaborators have access to accounts on the Tuck network for joint research projects. Faculty can also request TRC services for research projects involving non-Tuck collaborators. Coordination and proper use of TRC services, including compliance with data/software copyright/licensing agreements, are the responsibility of Tuck faculty, and not the TRC staff member. Tuck faculty will be billed for all TRC activities related to a joint research project.
Schedule your time with us. TRC services are available to faculty members of Tuck and associates, thus there is often a waiting list of individuals who require services. To provide services effectively and efficiently to all our consumers, and to be fair to the faculty who have been promised services at a particular time, we encourage faculty to request services when they have time to spend working with the TRC staff member. If faculty find that they cannot devote the time to working with the TRC staff person once provision of services has been approved, they are encouraged to formally terminate services and resubmit their request for services later when they can devote time to working with the TRC staff person. Likewise, if the TRC staff person feels that the faculty member has not been able to devote adequate time to the project (i.e., not responding to requests for information or assistance within 3 to 4 weeks, not providing adequate direction), TRC may decide to reschedule services until the faculty member is able to devote more time to the project. For most TRC services, the faculty member will re-enter the queue, and receive services within an academic quarter.
Ask for more time if you need it. Research projects are often iterative, and change as the project unfolds. If your project requires more time to complete than was requested, TRC will make every effort to respond to this request. However, you may be required to resubmit your request for services.
Request our services not our staff. TRC strives to provide services to consumers at a high level of quality. Thus, the person who is most qualified to provide the services requested will be assigned to work on the tasks. TRC staff members often work together on research projects to provide superior services. In addition, to improve efficiency, TRC staff members are being cross-trained in other areas of TRC services.
Let us document our services to your project. TRC is committed to proper documentation of activities that are required for faculty research projects. At the completion of each project, at your request the TRC contact person will provide you with written documentation about the activities that comprised your project. This may include program code, copies of output, decision rules for creating data sets, disk or CD copies of data, etc.
Use us for our skills and expertise. TRC staff members will not provide services to faculty members that are secretarial or administrative. TRC personnel may request that the faculty member have their secretarial staff do such activities as photocopying, copying/downloading data files, transferring text files to and from amostuck or other servers, printing output files or statistical results, and making tables. The primary source for data entry services is the secretarial staff.
If we can't, we'll find someone who can (outsourcing). At times, TRC will recommend that the faculty member outsource their request for services. A list of consultants that are pre-screened by TRC will be provided to the faculty member. Faculty will establish the contacts and inform the consultants of the requirements of their project. Currently, TRC requires all consultants providing statistical analysis to document the project, and supply TRC/faculty member with copies of all statistical code.