Rules, Expectations, and Goals

There are any number of reasons to establish lab rules encompassing safety, philosophy, and expectations. This is how I want our research group to operate:

General Rules

  • Do good science by asking questions early and often, planning ahead, and collaborating.
  • Give credit where credit is due.
  • Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP, such as students and post-docs) should be the first author of papers coming from their thesis work. Authorship should be discussed early and generally follows the ESA’s Code of Ethics – see also the advice of Schmidt (1987), Hunt (1991), and Weltzin et al. (2006).
  • Be safe and help others be safe by thinking critically about what training is needed.
  • Publish in Open Access venues whenever possible, noting different requirements from each funder.
  • Deposit all publications and technical reports on a preprint server such as bioRxiv, EarthArXiv, ESSOAr, etc.
  • All data must be organized and stored on the group’s GitHub organization with the metadata template completed.
  • Make all data and code available for each publication via a repository like Borealis, GitHub+Zenodo, Pangaea, etc.
  • Have fun.

Specific Rules

  • It is important to interact with others in the group. Although our work hours are flexible, being around between 09:30 and 14:00 several days per week helps build community—though we recognize this has become harder with rising living costs in Waterloo and the shift toward remote work.
  • We used to hold routine lab meetings (except during the peak field season), and attendance is expected. These sessions provide an opportunity to present new ideas, discuss data, and practice presentations. We actively work to maintain these regular meetings.
  • Everyone should attend at least one conference or workshop per year, assuming funds and time permit, and is expected to apply for supplementary travel grants. Please share your abstract with co-authors at least one week in advance.
  • Everyone needs to complete WHMIS training. Field personnel must hold Standard First Aid (for work near populated areas) or Wilderness First Aid (for remote locations). Anyone operating a boat requires a Pleasure Craft Operator Card. Risk assessment forms and emergency contacts must be kept on file in the department. No one does fieldwork alone.

Onboarding

Here is the checklist of onboarding tasks to help integrate new members into the group.

Safety

  • Get a OneCard and ask Jason to submit access requests for the CCRWS and SRC buildings, as well as the Map Library.
  • Complete Standard or Wilderness First Aid (typically coordinated in May with the Dean of Science office) and email a copy to Jason for our files.
  • Complete the Canadian Firearms Safety Course if working in northern field sites, and email a copy to Jason.
  • Complete WHMIS, Compressed and Liquified Gas Training, and Laboratory Safety training available via MyLearningSpace, and email confirmation/certificates to Jason.
  • Obtain a Pleasure Craft Operator Card and email a copy to Jason.

Other

  • Find your designated office space.
  • Learn how to process financial/reimbursement requests through Loris.

Data & Computing

We use Git and GitHub to manage code, data, metadata, and manuscripts:

We primarily use R and RStudio for analysis, modeling, and visualization (alongside Python, Jupyter, or MATLAB as needed):

  • Download and install R.
  • Download and install RStudio Desktop.
  • Open RStudio to verify a clean installation. (Note: Windows users may need Rtools and Mac users Xcode to compile certain packages).
  • Install core packages (tidyverse, usethis, and here) via the RStudio package manager or console.
  • New programmers should work through the Data Carpentry Introduction to R and Starting with data tutorials.
  • Vaccinate your global git configuration against stray files using usethis::git_vaccinate().
  • Practice creating a repository from our project template, fill out the metadata, commit, and push to GitHub.

Useful Resources

Finally