Guidelines for research assistants (Stolen from Michael Wenger's site at Penn State).

Expectations

As a member of this lab, you are a scientist-in-training. This means that I expect you to be thoughtfully and actively involved in all aspects of the lab's work. And it means that I expect the highest levels of professional and ethical behavior from everyone associated with the lab.

These are the basics:

• Attend all lab meetings. Be on time, and be prepared to describe and discuss the project(s) you are working on and the assigned reading for the week.
• Stay in contact. We make extensive use of e-mail, so get in the habit of checking your e-mail at least once a day. Make it a habit to touch base with me regularly outside of lab meetings, to let me know how your work is progressing. Any problem, no matter how small it might seem , should be communicated to me as soon as you notice it.
• Document everything. Legibly. For each of the projects, there will be a data log. This needs to be filled out, completely, for each subject who you test. Note all problems, irregularities, small changes in procedure, or any other detail that might conceivably have an impact on how we use and interpret the data.
• Push yourself. At the outset, you will probably feel like you are in over your head: that the topics, procedures, and experiments are way too complex. They are, at least at the outset. I expect you to struggle with the readings, to ask questions during lab meetings, and to constantly ask why we are doing the things we do to answer the questions we are pursuing.
• Treat subjects with the utmost civility and respect. Many of our subjects are required to participate as subjects in experiments and are given course credit for their participation. Some of our subjects are paid for each hour of their time. But what they give us is invaluable: without their data, this lab would not exist. In such an inherently unbalanced exchange, common decency suggests that subjects should be treated with great respect. And the ethical code of our discipline requires this (and much more).
  • Always be on time for your testing sessions. The lab and equipment should be ready to go when the subject arrives.
  • Always thanks subjects for their time, at the end of every session.
  • Be certain that credits are correctly documented or payments are made.
  • Never talk about a subject (their behavior, performance, piercings, etc.) with anyone outside the lab. We have made a promise of confidentiality to our subjects. Do not break that promise.

Care and use of the lab space

Our lab space is reasonably small, and we have quite a few people that need to use it. Attending to the following will make it a much more usable and enjoyable space.

• Keep it (and yourself) secure. Never leave the lab door open if you are not in the lab or are in one of the testing rooms with the door closed. Always check to be sure that the door is locked when you leave, if there is no one else in the lab.
• Keep it clean. If you work at one of the desks in the main lab area, clean up and remove your stuff when you are done. The same goes for any of the desks and computers in the testing rooms.
• Keep it quiet. If you are working in the lab when someone is running an experimental session, or if you are using the lab when someone else is working, make sure that you keep it quiet. Never play the radio while subjects are being tested. Keep the level of conversation very low, and move to the hallway or outside to the landing if you want to chat.
• Use of the computers. The computers exist first for research and second to support our work. You should feel free to use the lab computers to check e-mail, work on other class projects, etc., as long as it does not interfere with data collection, programming, stimulus preparation, etc.. All of the computers are on power strips, and should be turned on and off only using these power strips. Make sure that all computers (except for the Pentium machine in the work room) are turned off when you leave.
• Printing. Minimize the amount of printing that you do. Whenever possible, print using the "used" paper that is stored below the printer.

The deadly sins

There aren't too many things that you can do to really get in hot water. These are the most serious:

• Missing or being late for a testing session. This is perhaps the deadliest of the deadly sins. Missing or being late for a session shows extreme disrespect for subjects. If you are delayed, or sick, call me or one of the other lab members.
• Missing or being late for a lab meeting. Lab meetings provide us with the only time to get together as a group, to get caught up on the projects, and to discuss the readings. These meetings are a central part of the lab experience.
• Failing to document or mis-documenting something. If we don't know everything that has transpired during data collection, we can easily mis-interpret or mis-represent our results to the outside world. The former will make us confused and the latter will make us liars.
• Putting the data at risk. Each of the experimental protocols will require you to make data backups and possibly transfer data to the lab Unix machine. Failing to do either puts our work at extreme risk, should something happen to one of the computers.
• Putting yourself or the lab at risk. None of our experiments is important enough for you to put yourself at even the slightest personal risk. If you, for any reason, feel uncomfortable or threatened by a subject, get out . Call campus police, find me or someone else to help you. Never leave the lab unlocked or allow people you do not know to access the lab.