We are pleased to offer professional data analysis services to UT faculty and staff researchers with complex statistical or data management projects. Our consulting services can be tailored to meet your needs. Our consultants can guide you through the process of taking a raw dataset to a polished publication, or directly assist you by performing programming, data management, or analysis in a variety of applications. We support SAS, SPSS, Stata, AMOS, HLM, Mplus, Matlab, Maple, Mathematica, and others. If you desire, our consultants can also assist you in writing up the results for publication.

Hourly Rates

Contracts are charged at a rate of $65 per hour, with a minimum charge of $650. Charges must be paid through an IDT from a University account.

Schedule an Initial Meeting

To schedule an initial meeting, email the consulting coordinator at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with a summary of the basic aims and goals of the project along with a brief description of your data analysis needs. Based on this information, the consulting coordinator will assign a primary consultant to your project. Within two business days he/she will get back to you to schedule a meeting to discuss the potential contract.

Establishing a Contract

Prior to beginning actual work on any project, a SSC consultant will meet with you to discuss and complete a simple, one-page contract. At that time, you will be asked to provide a billing contact and address, as well as a UT Austin Account Number for Interdepartmental Transfer Voucher (IDTV). When the project is complete, a detailed invoice will be sent to you along with a copy of the completed contract.

Short Term Projects

For projects expected to be completed within one or two weeks a single meeting is usually sufficient to outline the requirements for services to be performed. During this meeting, required services, deliverables, and a timeline are specified.

Long Term Projects

For projects expected to continue for several weeks, we hold an initial meeting to outline and prioritize the proposed work. A written description of the proposed work will be sent to you for your approval before work commences. Subsequent meetings will be scheduled as needed to clarify project deliverables. The consultant will provide regular status reports that include descriptions of progress, obstacles, and anticipated completion dates for each phase of the project.

FAQs

(Please note that contract policies may be subject to change.)

Can students contract for consulting services?

Using departmental, grant, or endowment funds managed through the UT-Austin Office of Accounting, a faculty member may contract for services related to a student’s research for preparation of a report, thesis, or dissertation provided that the faculty member is the student’s supervisor of record and that the following conditions are met:

• The contracted service is incidental to the nature of the underlying project and the student already has or does not need to acquire the related knowledge and skills necessary for such work as part of the degree program.
• If any deliverable is directly incorporated into a report, thesis, or dissertation, the student must explicitly acknowledge that it was acquired through DSSC contract consulting services and does not represent his or her original work.
• The student’s supervisor of record, who is also the contracting client of record, transmits to the SSC consulting coordinator a signed and dated statement agreeing to these terms.

When will my consultant be available to work with me?

When is co-authorship considered appropriate?