Policies & Procedures

Policies & Procedures

Priority for the BDMC services is given to the cancer investigators with peer-reviewed funding, extramural grant submissions and pending manuscript or abstract submissions. We encourage you to submit your request for service via our online form. This information will help our core to triage your request to the relevant core expertise, facilitating a process by which a BDMC faculty biostatistician and/or staff will set up meetings to discuss your general needs and to clarify the scope of work. You will be contacted within 24-48 hours after your request is received. We also recognize that investigators, especially those new to the IUSCCC and/or BDMC, may wish to contact the core co-directors and/or program manager to gain a more general overview of core capabilities and processes. Investigators who already have a relationship with BDMC co-directors, associate directors, and members are welcome to directly contact the person about new projects.

The BDMC provides free assistance on preliminary data analysis for grant applications, grant statistical support, investigator-initiated clinical trial design, protocol preparation and project planning. Providing a no-cost service for conceptualization of grant design and methods encourages members to consider applying for extramural grant funding and expedites the statistical planning of cancer-focused research. BDMC members on funded grants or contracts are covered by appropriate levels of percent effort on collaborative work. For some projects, investigators pay an hourly rate charge for personnel support. This fee-for-service mechanism is used primarily for small projects.

Acknowledgement, authorship and collaboration: All research work performed by BDMC should be acknowledged in all ensuing publications. Fees paid for services provided by the BDMC should not negate the potential of co-authorship by BDMC scientists. These acknowledgements and achievements are important for the existence and continued funding of the BDMC. Given that many statistical procedures and BDMC-offered services require advanced intellectual involvement by the BDMC’s scientists (examples below), it is expected that this acknowledgement will be in the form of co-authorship according to the guidelines for authorship recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. BDMC scientists performing one or more of the following tasks meet the criteria for co-authorship:

• Literature reviews.
• Assistance in the design, development, and scientific revision of protocols and grant applications.
• Data analysis and interpretation of data (or both).
• Preparation of tables and figures or pertinent sections for the manuscript.
• Scientifically substantive edits to text, tables or figures of manuscript.
• Revisions to address reviewer questions/concerns.

contributions by BDMC scientists that do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments section. Examples of the tasks requiring an appropriate mention in the acknowledgment section include:

• Mere collection of data.

• Using PI-provided protocols that require no further optimization and/or troubleshooting.
• Mere collection of study data in which no data analysis or interpretation by BDMC members is required.

Please add the following statement to the acknowledgments section:
"Biostatistical and/or data management work was provided by the Biostatistics and Data Management Core at Indiana University School of Medicine, a core facility supported by the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center and funded in part by the NIH National Cancer Institute (NCI) Support Grant P30 CA082709."