Services
Our service is primarily a free in-house service focused on consulting, data analysis and communication of research. Our service for students depends on the faculty and never includes actual data analysis. For a fee data cleaning, tutoring, automation are offered, and (semi-) external clients can be served.
It is at the discretion of the consultant to accept or refuse requests, depending on the workload, time available, effort of the client, and perceived importance of the study.
The consultants offer advice to the best of their abilities, and within their own expertise (quantitative and/or qualitative research) and might refrain from advice or refer to other consultants. The substantive part of the study is fully the responsibility of the client/researcher. No responsibility can be assumed for any inadequate advice given if based on false or incomplete information from the client/researcher.
Consultations are requested through the online booking-tool. A single consultation to offer advice or discuss an analysis takes up a maximum of one hour. Consultations can be online or in real life at that consultant's office, dependent on the consultant. A consent of the promoter is in principle required for (Phd.) students.
Requests for analysis should be made well in time; no guarantees are given on immediate support. For more involved analyses a compensation may need to be discussed, and ideally SQUARE services are included within project proposals to attract the necessary funding.
Data offered should be ready for analysis and pseudonymised, data cleaning can be performed for a fee. The data remains the property of those who provide it, the analyses will be the property of SQUARE. Unless fully paid for, at least one SQUARE member is included as co-author on any resulting publication. Co-authorship includes a commitment to help with the communication of methods, statistics and results, as well as to the review process.
Reference:
Core facility - Support for Quantitative and Qualitative Research (SQUARE), Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Services to (semi-) external clients
Under specific conditions, analyses are performed for external clients or clients who are partly external to our research community. This typically requires a compensation that is agreed upon with the acting consultant and/or the coordinator.
For services to (semi-) external clients, it is implied that clients accept the following general conditions:
- VUB shall perform the project or services in accordance with the activities, timing and cost as mutually agreed between both parties.
- Client shall pay all invoices in accordance with the payment terms as mentioned on the invoice; invoices have to be paid within 30 calendar days following date of invoice.
- VUB has the right to use the results for the purposes of academic research and education.
- VUB shall use reasonable efforts to perform the project or services and this in accordance with the standards of care and diligence as normally practiced by universities providing services of similar nature.
- VUB assumes no obligation whatsoever with regard to the achievement of certain scientific results.
- VUB does not give any warranty, whether implied or explicit, with regard to the results of the project or services.
- VUB is only liable in case of its gross negligence or wilful misconduct.
- The name and/or logo of VUB may only be used after obtaining the prior agreement of VUB.
- These services conditions are governed by the laws of Belgium. Any dispute, which cannot be settled amicably, shall be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Brussels.
Ethical Code
SQUARE acts for its statistical service in accordance with the ethical code established by the American Statistical Society.
Consultants adhere to the principles of professional and scientific integrity, researchers (clients) are expected to do so as well.
Consultants aim to offer the most appropriate scientific solution to successfully perform the study, obtain statistics, understand and communicate results.
Consultants refrain from performing any analysis when encountering problems with the study design, hypothesis, research question or data collection that could compromise scientific integrity.
Client/researcher Responsibilities
A client/researcher is expected try to specify the project, experiment, hypothesis, research questions, as clearly as possible, including all marginal conditions that may be relevant. This typically includes a layman introduction of the nature of the data and the data collection, with a focus on what is statistically relevant.
The client/researcher is expected to signal possible problems with the data collection and measurement process. Any anomaly or deviation from protocol should be pointed out by the researcher, with reference to possible causes and remediating actions.
The client/researcher is expected to put in the necessary effort to understand the information offered by the consultant, and to follow up on suggested study material.
The client/researcher is expected to translate the statistical results to the researcher's own field of expertise, possibly with the help of the consultant to reach a correct interpretation of results.
The client/researcher is fully responsible for the substantive part of the study.