• Scope and Design Initiation:
  • New/ Continuing Faculty Collaborators may choose to meet (or otherwise communicate) with a HAAG project manager to develop the interdisplinary research project. The meeting with designate the external collaborators prefered point-of-contact which can be a themselves, their Post-Doc, their Graduate Student (with PI approval), or any other academic professional/ or staff.
  • The Collaborator will be asked to provide information on the project application and desire results. The HAAG Project manager will provide the faculty with suggestions for (1) computational approaches/ tools to accomplish tasks, (2) recommended number and skillset of researcher recruitment, (3) best practices from across HAAG project (timelines, meeting frequency, successes/ failures, etc)
  • Here are some examples of projects we have been contract for:
    • Analyze text in recommendation letters for gender bias
    • Automate image enhancement and landmarking for lizards
    • Produce a user-iterface for citizen scientists to analyze natural history collections
    • Detect and classify individual behavior of free-swiming cichlid fish.
    • ADD YOUR AMAZING PROJECT IDEA HERE
  • For a full description of on-going projects click here
• Creating your Project Contract:
  • Using information provided in your communications your HAAG project manager will create a 1-2 page contract that outlines the following:
    • Scope of work to be accomplished
    • number of researchers to be recruited
    • communication and collaboration preferences
    • data accessibility and use conditions
    • Resources (computational or otherwise) provided to the researcher to complete the project scope (if applicable)
• Click here for a sample project contract
• Click here for our template contract

One or more student researcher will be assigned the project contract on the basis of availability and skill. This researcher will receive credit for their work through the OMSCS research course (More about the OMSCS research course here). The selected student(s) will be introduced to their external collaborator and communication structure will be set up by the HAAG team through the collaborator’s preferred channels.

• Data Plan Creation: If the researchers will be working with sensitive lab data, the first step will be to develop a transparent data safety plan to which all researchers must adhere.
• Resource Plan Creation: The Project Manager and Student Researcher (S) will develop a computational resource plan based on the scope of the work being done. The external collaborator is welcome to provide computational resources if they have available or prefer their data to be maintain on their own devices, but this is not required. This document will be maintained within the HAAG administrative team who will assist the researchers in obtaining assess to needed resources as each project progresses.

Given a typical project contract here is how the work should be accomplished:

• Code & Visualization: Master Student generates the code. Request assistance from project manager if needed.
• Generate Report: Master Student generates the documentation of work done. Request assistance from project manager if needed.
• Review & Revise: Code and Documentation is review by project manager. Summary of result sent to collaborator for comments or suggestions. Collaborator can request to be trained by the masters student in the analysis approaches used if they desire to learn.
• Generate Project Idea: The comments from the collaborator and the project manager designate a new scope of work for the masters student based on the reported findings of their project.

The goals of every research project is to produce a body of work that can be shared with the greater scientific community. The external collaborator will play a role in determining when they feel the work is completed and we should move to the publication stage of the project cycle. The kind of work in this group will likely result in two kinds of publications:

• Method-based publication: a Methods publication will focus on the computational techniques used to analyze the project’s data. In this case, the project manager and masters researcher will likely be the primary authors. A discussion with the external will establish the following: (1) considerations for publication ordering, (2) whether or not data will be including with the publication, (3) how involved the external collaborator would like to be in the publication generation.
• Discipline-Specific Publication (by request): The collaborator might wish to use our insights to provide support for their publication. In this case, the external collaborator should request a meeting with the project manager to determine contribution and delegation of work towards the publication.

• HAAG Researcher’s work can (and has) provide proof of concept for your grant proposals
• HAAG Researcher’s work can (and has) lead to high quality publications
• Co-advising: HAAG administrators regularly attend meetings as needed to assist faculty in computational project guidance
• Collaborations: Becoming a HAAG faculty affiliate connects your projects which a community of faculty which can (and has) lead to new cross-lab collaborations

The HAAG administration team will initiate a formal recruitment process for all on-going and new contracts at the beginning of each semesters. The semester recruitment process is conducted as follows:

1.) All contracts and related work will be posted to departmental announcement channels a few weeks prior to classes

2.) Students who interest in HAAG Projects via survey will be asked to submit a project proposal outlining the following: week to week description of research activities, action plan for unexpected issues, and resource they plan to use to accomplish the task. [Sample form here]

3.) HAAG Student researchers will be selected by the HAAG administrative team. The selection process will be primarily focus on the quality of the research proposal and secondarily focused on other survey information including: previous courses, professional experience, thought towards collaborative learning, etc. A waitlisted candidate will also be selected for contracts in case our first choice researcher has changed their research plans. [Selection Rubric here]

4.) Faculty Affiliates will be notified of their primary and waitlisted researchers selected for their contract with a brief description of the reasons the researcher was chosen and what aspect of the project the researcher is well-suited. The Faculty can then (1) approve their team and backups, (2) request more information on their researchers, (3) request a re-selection under new criteria.

5.) Chosen and Waitlisted Researchers are notified of their status via email where they are asked to commit to join a contract. Researchers who accept their contract move into the HAAG communication channels, register for their appropriate research credit, and begin their on-boarding [See On-boarding docs here]. As primary researchers indicate they cannot join HAAG, we will move researchers of the waitlist, inform faculty, initiate the waitlisted researchers on-boarding. To ensure optimal group cohesion, we do our best to keep information as to a individuals status (waitlisted or accepted) party to online that individual, their faculty, and HAAG administrative team. For this reason, researcher will not receive their team assignment until the selection process is complete and will only be notified that they have been select for a team which they have indicated preference.

6.) A final line-up of the HAAG cohort will be announced to the students and faculty. HAAG admin will advise the teams of how to set up communications with their Faculty collaborator. All applicants will be notified that our selection process has completed.

Notes: Faculty can request researchers at any point in a given semester and HAAG administration will advise if there is a researcher available to start immediately, or whether you would see better results waiting for the next formal recruitment phase. We try our best to be flexible to the faculty needs, but it is always best practice to flesh out your idea with a HAAG administrator first and then get your tailored recruitment at the beginning of the semester. Note, HAAG runs fall, spring, and summer, so you never need to wait THAT long.

Computer Scientist build a lot of cool tools the all kinds of researchers want to use in different capacities. Often, our faculty affiliates and their labs have tools that they would like to learn to use, but might not have assess to time-sensitive, flexible training. HAAG offers technical consultations to HAAG faculty and their labs. Here are somethings we can help you out with:

• Install and use popular languages like (R, Python, Matlab, JavaScript, etc)
• recommendations for computational resource purchases
• Making the most of free-tier internal resources (for gatech labs)

By popular demand, we will be launching a new initiative to formalize and assist our affiliates with their technological endeavors:

• My CS-Buddy Program ** New initiative coming Spring 2025, or earlier by request **

HAAG Administration provides the following:

• early-intervention and solutions for non-optimal research pairings
• weekly review and guidance on projects
• teaches researcher best practices for meeting preparation with collaborators

OMSCS Committee of Rigorous Research Practice **NEW initiative to launch Spring 2024**