Statistical consulting services for current VCU faculty, staff, and students are provided by appointment by graduate students and faculty from VCU Statistical Sciences & Operations Research.
Two Levels of Consulting Services Are Provided:
Free Services
The goals of our free statistical consulting services are to provide:
- Current VCU faculty, staff, and students with the statistical advice and technological know-how so that you may independently analyze your data.
- Support for you to do your research work; it is not our goal to do your research for you or provide free tutoring.
- Information about available analytical and instructional resources.
- The direction in and understanding of your statistical analyses and the software in which you are working.
Conditions of Free Statistical Consulting Services:
- Each currently enrolled VCU student is offered 4 hours of no charge consulting per semester.
Additional time may be requested by the student’s adviser by email. - Each VCU faculty/staff member is offered 4 hours of no charge consulting per project.
- If you “No Show” for an appointment, it counts as a 1-hour visit.
- We can suggest various analyses that can be performed on your data, as well as give the pros/cons. The decision on which to use is up to you (or you and your advisor/dissertation committee).
Statistical Consulting Services Provided:
- Study and experiment design
- Statistical planning for grant writing
- Selection of Statistical Software
- Data Collection and Data Management Strategies
- Power Analysis / Sample Size Determination
- Choice of Appropriate Statistical Methods
- Understanding Your Statistical Analysis
- Interpreting Your Results
- Statistical Software Installation / Upgrade Support
Fee-Based Services
The following services may be provided on a fee for service basis:
- Write program code for you
- Analyze data for you
- Provide one-on-one tutoring in statistics and or software packages
Financial arrangements are negotiated between the client and the consultant.
Consulting Appointments:
- To request consulting services, please email statconsult@vcu.edu.
- Appointments may be made for times outside the walk-in schedule.
- Consultation often requires multiple appointments.
- Appointments are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
- During peak times, it may take 1-3 weeks to get an appointment.
Walk-In Consulting Schedule |
Day | Harris Hall, Rm. 4123 Monroe Park Campus 1015 Floyd Ave. | |
Tuesday | 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm | |
| | |
What We Can’t Do:
- Do Your Homework For You
Please see your professor or TA for coursework help.
- Turn Back the Clock
- Data analysis often takes longer than people often plan for.
- To ensure you meet your deadlines, start early, and set aside sufficient time to prepare your grant request or analyze your data.
Co-Authorship and Acknowledgement:
If the Statistical Consultant contributes in any substantial way to a publication, with advice, planning, or analysis, then he or she is entitled to be a co‐author (if their material is being used). In that case, the statistical consultant also has a responsibility for the publication as a whole, as outlined in the JAMA criteria.
Otherwise, a statement of acknowledgment similar to the following may be appropriate:
"The Statistical Consulting Service at Virginia Commonwealth University and in particular [name the consultant] assisted with the design and analysis of this experiment [or study or project]."
Articles: Please send copies of all articles that recognize the Statistical Consulting Service at Virginia Commonwealth University to statconsult@vcu.edu
Statistical & Research Resources
- Software at VCU
- Working with Sensitive Data
- When working with sensitive data, it is your responsibility to ensure that the data is secured during collection, transmission, and storage.
VCU Encryption Security Standard - sections III-V - Research Data Security Overview
- What is sensitive data?
VCU Data Classification Standard - How do I collect and store sensitive data?
- Unless stored on University centrally managed or comparable network storage devices, all Category I data must be encrypted when stored in electronic format.
- Secured central storage for sensitive research data is available on:
- All fixed storage devices on University-owned laptop computers must be encrypted with the VCU enterprise encryption solution.
- REDCap provides secured web data collection forms and secured web surveys
- See VCU Encryption Security Standard - section IV
- How can I safely transmit sensitive data?
- VCU Office of Research
- CITI Training
- NIH: Protecting Personal Health Information in Research:
Understanding the HIPAA Privacy Rule
- VCU Resources for Researchers
- Other Resources