Requesting Statistical Support at the CON

Scope of use by UI College of Nursing.  The CON Statistician provides support to the CON faculty and postdoctoral fellows as they prepare grant proposals and conduct research.

Types of assistance.  For investigators in the research planning phase, the Statistician works directly with the researchers to formulate research questions and hypotheses, choose an appropriate study design, and, with the Data Manager’s participation, develop plans for analysis, data entry, and data management.  For investigators in the data analysis phase, the Statistician consults with the researcher and provides advice on the appropriate statistical methods or conducts statistical analyses, depending on the need. The Statistician also helps with report preparation and dissemination of results.

Procedure for requesting an appointment (UI CON).  CON faculty and postdoctoral fellows are asked to complete the CON Statistical and Data Management Services Request Form available here: https://uiowa.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6yhweZvBpKk7P8M

Scope of use by the UIHC Department of Nursing.  The Office for Nursing Research at the CON is jointly sponsored by the CON and the UIHC Department of Nursing. As such, the services of the Research Office that are available to CON faculty, including consultation with the CON Statistician, are also available to UIHC DON staff and faculty. UIHC DON faculty/staff are asked to follow the following procedure:

1. Email the Director of the Office for Nursing Research for approval.
2. Once the request is approved, complete the CON Statistical Services Appointment Request Form:

https://uiowa.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6yhweZvBpKk7P8M

Human Subjects Protection.  If the data that will be shared with the Statistician are identifiable, the PI is responsible for submitting a modification to add the Statistician to the IRB application as a research team member.

Access to Data.  The PI may need to provide the Statistician to the folder on the shared drive where the electronic files for the research project are stored.

Prioritization of Projects.  To ensure that the Statistician can be maximally effective, projects may be prioritized according to their time-sensitive nature and also their likelihood of being completed quickly. Typically, grant proposals receive the highest priority, followed by work related to funded grants and, finally, unfunded research (i.e., no funding or expired funding).

Expectations regarding authorship.  For projects on which the Statistician works collaboratively with a faculty member or postdoc, it is expected that the Statistician will be included as an author on publications that result from this collaboration. The work of a Statistician meets all of the authorship requirements outlined in the University of Iowa’s Authorship Policy:  http://www.uiowa.edu/~our/opmanual/ii/27.htm#2710

Specifically, a Statisticians have a legitimate claim to authorship due to their:

Please note that according to the UI Policy, “It is expected that each author has been given the opportunity to participate in the drafting of the manuscript (or substantive revision of its scholarly content) and approves the final version of the manuscript to be published.”

Including the Statistician as an author is important for three reasons.  First and foremost, inclusion as an author recognizes the Statistician’s intellectual contribution to the project.  Second, inclusion of a statistician strengthens manuscripts when they are reviewed and considered for publication. Finally, having co-published with a statistician provides evidence for a strong, existing collaboration, which is regarded favorably by reviewers of grant proposals on which the Statistician is included as personnel.