A short-term project is a project that can be done in 17 hours by a trainee under the supervision of a responsible faculty member.
A medium-term contract is a project that can be done in four months by a trainee under the supervision of a responsible faculty member. Part of the paid fee will be used to buy-out half a GAT, which is around 102 hours.
A long-term contract is a project that can be done in eight months by a trainee under the supervision of a responsible faculty member. Part of the paid fee will be used to buy-out two half GATs, which is around 204 hours.
Scholarship-based projects:
This model is appropriate when both client and the faculty member wish to establish a long-term collaborative research relationship. The client will have a reliable source of consultation tailored to the specific domain.
The inquiry from a client will contribute to the student’s thesis. A client may participate in the student’s thesis work as a collaborator.
The client provides a scholarship to support the student for one or multiple years. Based on the level of commitment, the client and the faculty member design the overall thesis work together with the student.
The faculty member will support the development of the opportunities for future grant applications. These include MITACS, NSERC partnership grants that may be initiated by the faculty member (cash-matched by the client), or other funding opportunities initialized by the client with a budget to the faculty member’s consultation component.
Aftercare after paid service period:
After the closure of the project, if the client needs, the faculty member and the trainee may commit to further interpretation or support of manuscript writing, as long as the efforts are routine and reasonable. If there are substantial work, e.g., the change of research goals, or more different analysis upon the request of the reviewers, more payment through another project will be arranged.
Expectations:
After the discussion with the faculty member, the client should provide the details of the input and output of a service inquiry. The agreed deliverables have to be concrete enough to ensure the feasibility of the project. Both the client and faculty member should have a full respectable mutual agreement on the deliverables and potential problems before signing the project.
The expectations could be specified into two hierarchies that contain routine analysis and scientific discovery. The routine analysis is guaranteed, while the scientific discovery will be attempted as much as possible. If the client is not clear on the feasibility and expectations, the faculty member should provide a guide to identify the primary and secondary outcomes from a project.
Authorship:
The trainee and faculty member are required to have authorship for medium and long-term projects and scholarship-based projects when a publication is based on the service provided.
For a short-term project, a client determines authorship based on the contribution with full explanation.
Payment:
The funds should be paid in advance or in installment for fee-based projects.
The funds may be paid in a way agreed between the consultant, the DSAU, and client for the scholarship-based projects.
