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1. What is the difference between advice about my statistical needs and statistical collaboration from the BCC ?
Like other faculty members at Northwestern, the BCC statisticians are more than willing to offer brief general advice on statistical topics that may allow investigators to perform their work without extensive input from a statistician. This is often possible with very straightforward problems.
However, when a statistician’s input requires substantial intellectual contributions to the conception, design, analysis and/or interpretation of data for a research project or the final report of that work, we regard this as no longer simple “advice” but represents true scientific collaboration.
Simple advice can generally be accomplished in a short period of time and is available at no direct charge to investigators since it is supported by the School’s infrastructure grant to the BCC. Collaboration requires more investment of time than the School is supporting from the grant to the BCC, and this level of involvement requires financial support of the BCC’s work on the project from the investigator who requests the consultation.
2. When is authorship on a paper considered appropriate by the BCC statisticians?
As with any paper, authorship is generally expected whenever substantive input on the design or analysis is provided. As for the BCC’s approaches to authorship, we endorse the criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
(http://www.icmje.org/#author). These criteria state that authorship credit should be based on:
1) Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2) Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3) Final approval of the version to be published.
Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.
Since the statistician often contributes to each of these 3 levels of intellectual and scientific involvement in manuscript preparation, we generally feel that authorship is appropriate for this kind of collaborative effort.
3. If I am paying for the statistician’s work, why should I also allow co-authorship of the paper as well?
This question comes up occasionally, and the BCC policy is that authorship is separate entirely from the question of payment. Many research projects are supported by internal or external sponsors, and whether investigators acknowledge it or not, someone is always paying for the work involved. In the case of the BCC statisticians, perhaps the acknowledgement of payment is more obvious than it is for other collaborators, but no one is able to “contribute” to a project unless someone pays for that work.
The Medical School has established the BCC to make statistical consultation more readily available at the School. The Medical School has no policy that would allow an investigator to provide payment as a replacement for authorship.
When the BCC work is substantive, along the lines of what is discussed above, BOTH payment for services AND authorship on papers is usually justified.
4. How long will the project take?
You should expect to allow a reasonable time before deadlines. Remember that what appears to be a simple problem to you may not be. In the same way that you would want to be approached early in the process of preparing a new grant, the BCC appreciate the same courtesy.
5. Might there be a charge for additional analysis?
Initial estimate of cost is done on the requested analysis, but additional charge will be required for any additional analysis or revision to the previous analysis due to the changes in the data, since new effort will be carried out for the new request. We make our best estimate of the work involved to be fair to ourselves and to investigators, but workload changes over time, and charges may change to reflect the added workload.
6. What if I just want a second opinion?
Occasionally statisticians are asked for a second opinion on advice obtained elsewhere and we are not keen to be played off against other statisticians. The advice is either a) stick to the first one, using referees' comments if these are critical to obtain a revision of the analysis or b) start again and forget what the first statistician said. It is almost never possible to “harmonize” divergent advice of this type.
7. What if I have a last minute request?
We do not advise people to rely on being able to obtain advice at the last minute. Apart from the question of whether the answer to your problem is simple, you will not be the only person with a deadline to meet, and our workload may not allow that we can help you. We prefer to plan ahead whenever possible.
The NIH appropriation for FY 2006 includes an across-the-board reduction to NIH funding. The BCC executive advisory committee has established the following financial policy consistent with this appropriation and suggests that investigators adhere to the principles stated below.
The principal investigator of an awarded grant should try to keep the BCC co-investigator at the same effort level as in the grant application to ensure the quality of the design, conducting and analysis of the study. If downward adjustment is absolutely needed, then the PI should initiate a meeting with the involved BCC co-investigator, the BCC director and the chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine to discuss the options. The advisory committee strongly recommends that any downward adjustment may not exceed the prorated cut rate. |
