Methodological & Statistical Support

In addition to pre-award and post-award services, the Office of Research is available to provide statistical support to current or planned research projects. This support is available to all HHS faculty as well as HHS students to a more limited extent. This support typically includes analytical consultation for projects already underway or methodological consultation and power analysis for prospective projects. Support for external funding proposals, including consultation for methodological design and plan of analysis, is also available. In all cases, the statistical and methodological support provided by the Office of Research is intended to be a collaborative effort by the faculty/student and the statistician to achieve the research goals of the investigator.

Common support roles include, but are not limited to :

• Consultation on statistical analysis for manuscript preparation
• Power analysis for prospective studies
• Methodological design consultation
• Plan of analysis consultation and/or writing for funding proposals
• Assistance with data management plan
• Coming onto a grant as the statistician or co-investigator
• Training and support for electronic data storage, and online database and survey development using REDCap (redcap.uncg.edu)

As noted earlier, the statistical support provided by the Office of Research is intended to be a collaborative effort. The statistician will provide consultation concerning analysis options and/or interpretation, and may also conduct analyses depending upon the specific needs of the research project. Remember, our goal is to help foster research success among our faculty and students!

Data Management Services

Data management and security have always been important components of successful research. They are also becoming increasingly important points of emphasis when applying for external funding. REDCap is the preferred resource for electronic data entry, management, and storage available to HHS researchers. REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture; http://project-redcap.org/) is a web application that can be used to build and manage databases. Think of this as a better alternative to using programs like Excel to manage electronic data. The application is accessible anywhere you are connected to the internet, so there is no software to install and you’re not anchored to a few select lab computers. User accounts are authenticated through the UNC Greensboro portal, so there are also no new usernames or passwords to remember: just use your current UNC Greensboro credentials. Also, when you use REDCap, all data is stored on secure, UNC Greensboro servers. REDCap access, training, user setup, and basic support are available at no charge for most projects. The standard procedure will be to help research teams get started using REDCap and to provide support for basic troubleshooting and functionality needs. However, if a more substantial level of support is required, the HHS Statistician is available to come onto externally-funded projects.

Benefits:

• Accessible from any computer with a secure internet connection
• Very user-friendly, and includes multiple topic-specific video tutorials
• User-specific rights – decide what level of access each user will have to the data
• Data quality features
  • The logging function automatically creates a date- and time-stamped record each time a user logs into a project, and records any action taken
  • The record locking function allows designated users to lock a record, preventing any further changes to be made to the selected participant’s data
• Meets the 2-Lock rating requirement of storage of “Moderate Risk” data
• Automated data export to multiple programs, including SPSS, SAS, R, Stata, and Excel
  • Including the metadata (i.e., codebook, value labels, etc.)
• Calendar function to help with scheduling and event tracking
• Online survey development and implementation
• There’s more, just ask!