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Consultations

Through the QCU, research Honours, Masters and PhD students are offered a free initial consultation to provide a kick-start to their research to ensure that they embark on a path that will lead to successful completion of their research.

Subject to the terms and conditions specified in QCU's service policy, further assistance is available to meet various needs for statistics support throughout the whole process of their research studies. Charles Sturt University staff researchers are also entitled receiving QCU's statistics support services as detailed in our service policy.

Learn more about consultations

Service Policy

(Effective 1 September 2017)

QCU provides a free initial consultation service (30-minute session) which may lead to:

1. Further paid consultation service - $150 per hour. If necessary an extra free (30-min.) consultation session is available for further confirming the terms and conditions of the consulting services
2. Further free collaboration service (subject to an upper limit of the service hours allocated for each case) requiring co-authorship/ownership of research publications/outcomes if the contribution of the consultation service is substantial.

Time limits

A time limit (per case) available for the free services will be as follows:

• 10 hours for honours and masters students;
• 20 hours for doctoral candidate students;
• 20 hours for staff members.

Service priority

Service priority will be applied in the order of:

1. Masters by research and Doctoral students (first priority);
2. Staff members (second priority);
3. Masters by course and Honours students (third priority).

NOTE: Any consultation time which exceeds the limit may be charged at $75 per hour unless an exemption is granted by the Office of Research Services and Graduate Studies (subject to the availability of QCU's consulting resources).

What counts as consulting hours

Only the time directly related to the consulting service is counted as 'consulting hours'. This includes time spent:

• with the client in phone call or email communications or in face-to-face meetings
• on performing data treatment and/or analysis and/or presenting the analysis outcomes.

Any time spent on background reading, finding reference materials or familiarisation with or learning specific topics related to the consulting problem normally will not be counted.

Your role in our support

Understanding and defining the research problem(s) qualitatively and quantitatively so that relevant information/data are collected and analysed using the most suitable analysis methodology are essential for students at all levels.

The use of QCU's services (free or paid) should not become an excuse for students not being able to understand and/or interpret their research outcomes/findings. If this does happen, it may seriously compromise the integrity of their academic assessment outcomes. Therefore, under their supervisor's guidance, students should try their best to build up their own ability in performing valid data analyses and correctly interpreting their analysis results with the help of QCU's services.