General Expectations and Policies

Owned by Stephanie Grasso
Last updated: Oct 14, 2024
8 min read

This page serves to clarify lab policies and expectations. It is better to clarify expectations too early than when it is too late. By joining our lab, you confirm that you have read and agreed to the policies outlined below:

When the term PI is used this refers to Dr. Grasso or Dr. Grasso & Dr. Santos Santos                                                

Take notes

Keeping track of our work is very important in research. You won’t remember all the details of the instructions you received, and anyways, this is not how you should spend most of your energy.

  • All students are expected to take notes and track progress of their own tasks as a responsibility of being part of the lab. Your lab notebook is where you can keep such notes.

  • If you are a PhD student, you are expected to take notes on your specific research activities. Your lab notebook is where you can keep such notes.

  • Staff and SLPs are required to take notes in the meeting notes (Smartsheet or Wiki, depending on the meeting) for each respective meeting, and to document decision-making about changes in procedures agreed upon as a group.

Ask questions

We don’t expect you to know everything! We ourselves keep learning every day! If you are not sure about a procedure or information, please do not hesitate to ask questions, even if that means that we have to repeat things to you. Believe us, we way prefer to prevent and repeat than to correct misunderstandings later on.

Time of arrival 

You are expected to arrive on time. When collecting data, it is good practice to be present and have everything ready to run 25 minutes before the arrival of participants. Some participants like to arrive early, and being prepared for that is essential. If you are a student clinician (MA or PhD) or if you are an SLP leading an experiment/data collection, you should plan to arrive 25 minutes earlier to make sure the hardware and software, assessment materials needed to conduct the experiment is up to date and ready to conduct the experiment.

 

Availability/Scheduling/Requesting time off

Data collection in real experiments is the best way to validate your training. All lab members are expected to contribute to data collection in the lab.

  • Student Volunteers:

    • If you are a student volunteer, your availability will be discussed at the beginning of the semester and you will be expected to be available during that time.

    • Major changes in availability

      • If a major change in schedule is necessary, let your supervisors know right away via your Supervisor Chats on Teams (with as much notice as possible) but at a minimum, one week in advance is needed, as this could affect data collection and other lab activities. You can benefit a lot from training and lab experience, so please remember to treat your research assistantship as you would treat a professional position.

      • If you happen to have patient-facing duties or deadlines, you must also propose a plan for who can cover those duties. All of this information should be included in a single message to avoid back and forth communication.

    • Lab Volunteer Policy on Weekly Commitment

      • We require a consistent weekly time commitment from our volunteers, ranging from 8 to 10 hours. While we understand this is a volunteer position, the lab relies on your regular contributions. To ensure effective planning and collaboration, we ask that your hours remain consistent week-to-week rather than varying unpredictably (e.g., 8 hours one week, 9 the next, and 10 the following). In other words, if you have commited to 10 hours a week, we should be able to consistently expect you in the lab 10 hours every week. If you are unable to commit to 10 hours per week and need to make a change to 9 or 8 hours/per week, please coordinate with your supervisors to establish a predictable schedule that fits within these guidelines.

      • If you need to make minor changes to your schedule (doctor appointments, other events that come up during your scheduled shift, etc), please take a look at your schedule and propose a plan as to how you can make up your hours and place those in your Supervisor Chats for approval. It is important to receive approval because of the desk assignments and availability of other students in the lab.

        • For example:

          • “I need to meet with a professor to discuss an assignment, and their office hours are during my scheduled shift [on specific date/time]. I can make up [number of missed minutes/hours] by staying longer after my scheduled shift on [specific date] ends. Will that be fine?”

    • Holidays

  • Paid Employees:

    • Time Off/Vacation Requests

      • If you are a paid employee of the lab, you are expected to submit a vacation request 1.5 months (6 weeks) prior to your vacation time. This request may be approved or denied based on the timeline of the studies and the participants who need to be seen at that time, as well as who needs to open and close the lab. If you have patient-facing duties, send the plan for coverage directly with Dr. Grasso, in writing, so we know who will be responsible for your participants while you are away. Once your time is approved and we have a plan, we are good to go! The final steps are to announce it in the General Teams channel so the lab knows and to add it to the lab calendar. Please note that you should also REMIND the lab on the General Teams channel that you will be OOO right before you leave so that everyone is on the same page and you should set your status to out of office.

    • Holidays

      • Per the University’s Human Resources site, “employees who are appointed to work at least 20 hours per week for a period of at least 4.5 continuous months are eligible for holiday leave. This does not include positions which require student status as a condition of employment. Holidays are compensated at 8 hours per day for full-time employees. Eligible part-time employees receive holiday pay proportionate to the number of hours appointed to work weekly. Employees who work on a holiday will receive equivalent time off categorized as holiday compensatory time. Earned holiday compensatory time may be used as leave within the 12-month period following the holiday worked.”

      • If you are a student in a GRA paid position, you do not qualify for paid time off on holidays. However, if you would like the day off, please take a look at your schedule and propose a plan as to how you can make up your hours and place those in your Supervisor Chats for approval.

 

Lab Equipment

At the end of each semester an inventory check will be conducted to ensure no equipment is missing from the lab by the lab managers/research coordinators. Currently these tasks are completed by @Katie Cole and @Estefanía García

If you have a device checked out in your name, you are responsible tor replying promptly (within 48 hours) ensuring that the device and all its associated items, such as chargers are in your possession

If you have lost a charger or any item that belong to the lab, likely the lab will not have budget to replace it, and it will be your responsibility to promptly purchase a new charger/item and to communicate with the PI and lab managers that this has been replaced.

IRB approval training & certifications

All researchers in the US running studies with human participants have a standardized code of ethics and this also includes multi-site studies with a US site involved. As part of your training, you must complete a short ethics tutorial before running experiments. You will be provided with instructions on how to complete the training tutorial. Pay attention during this training which occurs during onboarding as you are responsible for the data you handle while being part of the lab. 

Professional boundaries

Interactions with participants should be cordial and professional, like when you get good customer service. Don’t forget that you are representing a research institution and our lab, not just the research project you are involved in. Further, we regularly interact with medical and other confidential information, so interactions that are too friendly or casual could be interpreted by participants as intrusive or nonchalant. So be professional and kind toward participants and your colleagues. 

How not to dress

There is no “dress code” to work in a lab, but a few things to remember that might help you to avoid some awkward moments… You probably don’t want to learn the hard way, so let us list a couple of things here for you.

On days when participants are in-person ensure that you are wearing business casual clothing. We are offering a clinical service so it's important that participants feel as though they are entering a professional environment. On days when participants are only present via Zoom, if you are interacting with them during the session ensure that from the waist up, your dress is business casual. 

Noise-level and chatting in working space

We like to think of the lab as a happy place, although it is also a location to work. Thus, certain areas must remain quiet so people can accomplish their work, a little bit like if you were at the library. Therefore, when interacting in the work stations areas, please keep verbal communications to a minimum and whisper if you have to communicate with someone quickly. For longer interactions, a respectful practice for your colleagues is to move to the hallway or to a removed area of the lab, so that you can interact more freely. 

Please restrict use of your cell phone to breaks, specifically for viewing social media and ensure the volume is not loud for others to hear. If you need to take an important call, that’s no problem, but again be mindful of the noise in the lab space and step out to take any non-lab work calls.

Equipment maintenance

Make sure to leave things in order and the equipment clean when you leave a room. Equipment is expensive, so make sure you to clarify any cleaning procedures with your supervisor as some equipment require special care (e.g. NO water). Ask your supervisor if you have any question. Tip: Organizing the material and cleaning up is a nice opportunity to take initiative if you want bonus points ;-)

Equipment use

To prevent computers being infected with malware, do not install software in any computer in the lab. Ask your PI if you need to install any specific software for a project-related activity. Lab equipment (e.g., headphones, tablets, paper, pencils, etc.) should stay in the lab.

Programming/Analysis skills

Keep an eye open for introductory programming courses or workshops on MATLAB, Python, or even Linux, as these skills are very useful in a lab environment. There are also interesting online tutorials such as Software Carpentry or Code Academy available that can be useful. As a PhD student, we will have several training sessions in which you will learn how to do basic programming for relevant analyse. Do not worry if you do not have any programming experience. These sessions will be adapted to your current level.

PhD program requirements and deadlines

If you are a PhD student, you are expected to be aware of the PhD requirements of your program. Make sure you discuss your program deadlines with your PI in a timely manner. Failure to comply with this may result in late graduation.

One-to-one meetings with your PI

Keeping things organized will help you get the most out of your meetings with the PI. Individual unplanned meetings should be requested at least one week in advance. Meeting cancelations should be communicated at least 3 business days before.

Students are expected to come prepared for 1:1 meetings by entering information about the meeting into the 1:1 meetings Wiki one day before each standing meeting to explain the specific activities that you would like to conduct during the meeting, the progress that you have made since the last meeting, and the challenges that you have encountered so far. Failure to have updated documentation in the Wiki will result in automatic meeting cancellation.

To make the most of your meetings with the PI, ensure you dedicate the meeting to research activities that require the PI's assistance and cannot be accomplished independently. We will use Wiki meeting pages to track these meetings. 

Meetings with Research SLPs often need to happen on an ongoing basis and although Research SLPs are responsible for taking notes and documenting decisions made in meetings that affect procedures and data, meetings may need to be rescheduled with less notice and this is acceptable since they are on the front lines of data collection.

Student-PI interactions

Proactive students tend to receive more supportive letters of recommendation than those who wait to be contacted by their PI in order to make progress on their research. Remember, your PI is here to assist you, and you are expected to initiate contact with them as needed to accomplish your academic goals.

Grant/Research proposals

  • If you are a PhD student and plan to submit a research proposal that will require any form of PI sponsorship (e.g., NIH, NSF GRFP), you need to inform the PI at least four months prior to the official submission deadline and all the documents and forms that you are required to produce to submit the proposal (e.g., project description, summary, data plan management, etc.) must be shared with the PI at least one month prior to the submission deadline. The PI will NOT sponsor any research proposals that do not adhere to this timeline.

  • If you are a PhD student wanting to propose a NEW research project outside of the current projects in the lab, and outside of a grant submission, you are expected to discuss it with the PI for approval as new projects are not always possible. 

Scientific dissemination

Any scientific dissemination (e.g., manuscripts, abstracts, and presentations) of research conducted under the PI supervision must be previously approved by the PI. If you plan to submit an abstract for a conference, ensure that you share a draft with the PI at least three weeks before the deadline and with co-authors at least 1.5 weeks prior to the deadline. Failure to comply with this timing means the abstract cannot be submitted. 

  • Support for attendance to conferences is not guaranteed and depends on lab-funding 

    • UT-Austin based PhD students have access to funding via UT for a set amount per year

    • When possible, the PI will provide funding when you have submitted a first-authored submission and if you are a UT-Austin PhD student or a research SLP 

    • Depending on funding conference fees may be possible via Hospital Sant Pau and need to be discussed with Dr. Santos in advance. Only first-authored submissions can be supported with prior discussion

Decision-making

If you are staff, you may be in a leadership position; however, this does not mean you have authority to make decisions about study design or tell your colleagues what they should do with respect to study design or decisions regarding research procedures. All changes to research procedures need to be discussed with the PIs (Dr. Grasso and Santos) in a meeting and need to be well documented in meeting notes. Ultimately, the PIs need to make these decisions though we are very welcoming of suggestions. If you have a doubt about what you are able to make decisions about vs. not please discuss this with the PIs. 

Letters of recommendation

Letters of recommendation take time, especially the ones that are meant to be supportive.

  • If you need a letter of recommendation from your PI for graduate school, you need to notify the PI at the start of the Fall semester when a message will be posted indicating the steps needed to request a letter. If you do not provide the stated materials by the deadline: Nov. 20th each year, the PI cannot commit to providing you with a letter. 

  • You will need to take the steps below to proceed.

    1. Email the PI that you will be requesting letters

    2. Fill out this spreadsheet https://utexas.box.com/shared/static/t7rnga8xght1qpv6jadlmq3bfokclbov.xlsx

    3. Upload it here: https://utexas.app.box.com/f/1b0a7432da944144b7e134b1a991604e

  • If you are a PhD student/Postdoc or Staff, I need to know 3 weeks in advance. 

 

 

 

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