Data Science Consulting Terms of Service

Overview

The Data Science Consulting Program (the Program) is a collaborative effort between the Data Science Services Department in the NC State University Libraries and the Data Science & AI Academy. Help is available to all NC State affiliates (student, staff, and faculty), and we strive to provide high quality assistance. The Program consists of librarians, faculty, and a team of Ph.D students from a variety of departments who work as Data Science Research Consultants. We offer consulting to serve an educational and advisory function for affiliates. By making use of our services, patrons agree to follow all expectations and guidelines listed below.

We strive to deliver an initial response to consultation requests within two business days. The Program cannot guarantee support for last minute requests or short-turn around times. 

General Expectations and Guidelines

  • Student patrons of all Libraries services must abide by the Code of Student Conduct.
  • Our consulting model is designed for short consultations (~30 min). Some projects may be eligible for further support (up to 20 hours total of work). If you have a request that we are not able to support, we will refer you elsewhere when possible.
  • The Program supports requests directly connected to the research and educational goals of the university. Examples include scholarly research, appropriate course assignments and projects, dissertation/thesis work, grant research, and other related forms of academic work.
  • While not intended as a step-by-step homework help or tutoring support service, we can help support learners in applying concepts and techniques to their own work independently when permitted by assignment parameters.
  • Patrons own and are fully responsible for their analysis, code, visualizations, and all other results produced.
  • Our service is available at no cost to university affiliates and we do not provide for-hire, or contract-based consultation services.
  • The Program will not retain any data, code, or other files associated with your project for the long term. Please save any needed files.
  • If your project contains classified or sensitive data, you may schedule an appointment with the Program. However, patrons may not provide access to that sensitive data at any time. To learn more about sensitive and secure data, please see the resources below:

Consultation Guidelines

Expectations for Scheduled Consultations

  • We expect that you, the patron, have made a reasonable effort to accomplish or define your objective prior to requesting the appointment.
  • Scheduled consultations are limited to half an hour.
  • Complicated or time-intensive requests can be broken into a limited number of additional consultations if necessary. Please also see below for more information on project support.
  • If the number of requests from a patron exceeds our capacity to to assist, we may refer patrons to their instructor, advisor, academic department, or outside tutoring service for further assistance.
  • If your request is time sensitive, please schedule an appointment ahead of time if possible. We cannot guarantee last minute availability of appointments.
  • Please confirm your appointment and provide project files, sample data, and questions in advance, when possible. This enables our consultants to prepare and make the meeting time more productive.
  • Department Staff regularly review scheduled consultation appointments and may cancel, reschedule, or assist a consultant as necessary. 

Drop-in Help

We encourage you to schedule an appointment. However, we offer drop-in help between appointments, pending availability. If your unscheduled consultation becomes lengthy, you may be asked to make an appointment for a later time to continue assisting with your request.

Project Support

  • The Program can provide scoped support for projects, not to exceed a total of 20 hours of work.
  • We will review your project and work with you to identify a specific scope of work. A change in scope will require approval from Program leadership.
  • Project consulting is not intended to replace a dedicated member of your research team. We do not expect that the engagement will have an extended duration and cannot guarantee that the same consultants or team members will have future availability.
  • You may work with multiple consultants or members of the Program for your project.
  • We expect you to direct email communications to getdatahelp@ncsu.edu and not to any individual email addresses. Documents should likewise be shared as directed. Consultants are not available to work on projects outside of their approved schedule.
  • We generally expect that the scope of support will not rise to the level of co-authorship on publications or other scholarly output. We do appreciate if you would like to acknowledge the support of the program with the following statement: “​​We are thankful for support from The Data Science Consulting Program at NC State University, a joint effort between the Libraries’ Data Science Services Department and the Data Science & AI Academy.”
  • We can provide consulting on topics related to student theses and dissertations, but may need to limit the degree of support in these cases. We encourage students to communicate with their advisor before seeking outside support to ensure compliance with the University’s Graduate Handbook.