Supporting Courses & Services - Statistical Advice Centre for Students (STACS)

The Social Sciences Research Centre, in collaboration with the Graduate School, offers training courses in statistics and provides consulting service to postgraduate research students.

The followings are guidelines for the use of STACS:

1. The student's supervisor must consent to the involvement of the advice centre in the project and must be kept informed about the statistical consultant's advice.

2. STACS will document the visit to the centre. The documentation will give a brief outline of the project and state the nature of the consultation, with a place for the supervisor's consent to be formally given.

3. If the consultant statistician is merely providing help in applying standard statistical procedures to ideas, which have been properly formulated by the student, then the consultation will be treated as a free service, designed to assist the student as much as possible. In these cases, no publication credit is expected by the consultant. (Indeed some of our consultants may not even want public acknowledgement for their help. This may seem strange, but many consultants feel that a "thanks for statistical help" at the end of a paper, makes them responsible for all statistical content of that paper, when perhaps they have only given advice on one small procedure.)
   
   
4. If, on the other hand, the statistician contributes essential research ideas of value to the project, then it is expected that the statistician will operate more in the mode of a collaborative researcher, as part of a team with the student and his/her supervisor. In these cases, publications sent to journals should include the statistical consultant as a co-author. Thesis publication is less affected, of course; an acknowledgement of the statistician's assistance would suffice.
   
   

5. Since the funding is fairly limited, STACS must limit the time spent on providing free advice to students. Thus we require that any consultation, which involves the statistician in more than four hours' work, further consultation hours must be on a paid basis. In this context, it will be essential for the consultant, the student and the supervisor to discuss the basis of any continuing work.

6. Students and their supervisors need to have realistic expectations about statistical consultations. Sometimes STACS will not be able to assist greatly, whilst on other occasions the time needed to be of any real help might be more than the student initially expects. The following points should be borne in mind.
   
   

• Perhaps only 30% of data-analysis exercises fit into the framework of standard textbook situations. Most analyses involve innovative work by the statistician to devise the correct method, or indeed the correct conceptual framework.

• Furthermore, in many studies the statistician is unable to offer good advice in a short time. He/she needs familiarisation with the subject matter of the student's field and may also need to explore the data quite extensively in order to offer any advice at all. Often the statistician can only offer good advice if he/she is involved in an ongoing way.

• Many statistical analyses require extensive computation. It is our experience that some students are unable to do these computations themselves, without help. The Social Sciences Research Centre can assist, as part of the consulting service, but this will often take the consultation beyond the four-hour, free-service limit.

7. Prior to journal submission of any paper involving the statistician's advice, it is a courtesy to send the paper to that statistician. He/she may indeed wish to be acknowledged. In any case, the consultant would usually be interested to see how the project has progressed and would also like a copy of the paper for his/her records. Failure to observe this courtesy may affect the continued access to STACS for that student (or supervisor).

Students will need to submit a brief description of the problem together with their completed application form.

Eligibility and Enrolment

1. All current MPhil/PhD students (including F/T and P/T) are eligible for the above services during their candidature for their degrees. However, each student is entitled to 4 hours of free service only.
   
   
2. For FREE service, students should complete the Application Form for Support Services for MPhil/PhD Students (GS3) and return the form to the Graduate School.
   
   
3. Further consultation hours are charged at HKD414 per hour. Students are required to complete a separate form for further service (GS4) which is obtainable from the Graduate School on request. Those who are supported by their departments should seek endorsement from their supervisors and Heads of departments, and specify the number of hours sponsored and the departmental account code to be charged. For self-financing students, please submit the correct amount of payment.