The RDS Department offers support to Georgia State University (GSU) students, faculty, and staff in the areas of data analysis tools & methods, data visualization, finding data & statistics, data collection, and data cleaning & management. We provide this support via recorded workshops & video tutorials, micro-credential badges, custom sessions for classes and research teams, and one-on-one help.
RDS assistance is focused on secondary / supplementary support for troubleshooting specific software/coding or methods needs. We are here to empower you to do the work yourself for the task at hand and for the future, not to do the work for you. If a need is beyond our scope of expertise or capacity for assistance, we commit to directing you to alternative resources -- such as other campus entities; online resources like SAGE Research Methods (SRM), O'Reilly for Higher Education eBooks and multi-media resources for software/coding tools support, our online guides, and our recorded workshops and video tutorials; print resources for checkout from the University Library; and so on.
Academic department faculty (e.g., course professors/instructors, thesis/dissertation advisors, etc.) are students’ primary resource for support in the areas of research methods, data analysis and visualization, and statistical/quantitative and qualitative analysis software assistance. The RDS Department is here to supplement that support. RDS members will refer students back to their academic department for assistance when the support being sought is the primary responsibility of academic department faculty or the home department.
Due to the limited capacity of our department, we generally limit our support for statistical or research methods needs when they are tied to a software/coding platform. We will use our discretion to determine if a statistical/methods need without a software/coding component is within our scope of expertise and capacity for assistance. Our support does not include step-by-step homework help or tutoring support services.
Prior to an appointment with an RDS member, we may direct you to our recorded workshops and video tutorials or other resources to gain the foundational skills for using various analytical software/coding platforms or methods. If after consulting these materials you continue to have need for support, we encourage you to contact us with your questions and to potentially schedule an appointment for one-on-one help.
When RDS members determine that a student or faculty's assistance expectations have gone beyond the scope of appropriate support services in terms of content or frequency, they will communicate as such to the individual. If the individual has further questions or concerns, they may contact the RDS Department Head, Dr. Mandy Swygart-Hobaugh.
When RDS members determine that their support for a research project or teaching curriculum has resulted in substantive intellectual contributions, they will negotiate the appropriate recognition for their intellectual contributions (e.g., co-authorships, acknowledgments, thesis/dissertation committee membership, copyright/creative commons privileges, etc.).
Non-GSU researchers are welcome to view our online recorded workshops and video tutorials and use our online guides. RDS members do not offer one-on-one assistance (either face-to-face, via email or other virtual modes, or over the phone) to non-GSU researchers because it is not sustainable for them to open their one-on-one services up that widely.
