Meet with our Director

Please contact us at helpslab@montana.edu or (406) 994-4107 for a free consultation. Your message should include basic information about your project, as well as the date by which any cost estimate would be needed.

Dr. Eric Raile

Dr. Eric Raile
HELPS Lab Director
Department of Political Science

 

 

Preparing for Your Consultation

The HELPS lab provides one free hour of consultation to researchers at the start of a project to help determine the specific needs of the project and to set up a project timeline and budget. To the extent possible, the researcher should be prepared to provide the following information either before or during this consultation session to ensure the best quality service. A researcher unable to provide the following information may need to work further on the research design or may need to pay for further consultation services in order to obtain the estimate. The requested information includes:

  • The date by which the estimate is needed
  • A short description of the research project, including the research question and purpose
  • The anticipated methods of data collection (i.e., web, mail, personal, or phone survey; interviews; focus groups; computer-based experiment)
  • A description of the population and any requests related to specific sampling procedures or sample characteristics
  • Information about who will provide the sampling frame (e.g., the researcher or the HELPS Lab) and any other information about the recruitment of research participants
  • The desired final sample size
  • The funding source or planned funding source (including grant applications)
  • The anticipated dates of data collection
  • Data security and confidentiality requirements
  • The desired end product(s) (e.g., raw or cleaned data, basic data summary, codebook, etc.)