Undergrad RAs

[Parasaurolophus]

I just found out that my institution has semi-regular money available (via internal grant applications) to hire research assistants from our (undergradaute) student population. I'm not really in a good position to take advantage of it this year, but I'd like to keep an eye on it for the future. The thing is, though, that I'm in a discipline where most research is pretty solitary (there are no labs, no data to gather [well, not usually], or anything like that). Graduate programs in my field occasionally have RAships available, but most of those are really just work-free fellowships disguised under the title of RAships; there are a few real RAships, but those mostly involve indexing, proofreading, etc., so not really hands-on real research-oriented work.

So the question is: for those of you who do have undergraduate research assistants, or have had them in the past: what kinds of tasks do you delegate to them? I'm especially interested in hearing from people working in typically non-lab, non-data fields. At this point, I'm just trying to get a feel for the kinds of projects I could involve my students in. I could, obviously, write a book or edit some collection and apply for student help with some of the editorial or proofing tasks, but that doesn't seem like a very worthwhile introduction to research culture.

Some additional info pertinent to my own situation:

• This is a former community college, turned university (roughly ten years ago): the university offers very few majors, and not all that many four-year degree programs (we're still mostly operating at the associate's level). There's no major or minor in my field, so even fourth-year students haven't done much work in my discipline.
• The grants are meant to be for research-related tasks, so developing teaching-related resources or activities is off the table.

[craftyprof]

I wouldn't dismiss the book project - at the end of the day, it has to be research that you want to do.  Undergrad RAs are a major time commitment, so they have to be helping with something that actually advances your research agenda.

Start with your goals.  Then try to find the pieces that are repetitive/ongoing enough that you can train your RA to do them and still get some return on that investment of time.  That may mean indexing or proofreading, or it could be something else.  It's okay to give students things that feel small or like grunt work - the exchange is that you meet with them and help them learn how their piece fits into the bigger research project.  Talking them through your thinking on the project can help you to conceptualize the project or hone your argument.  If it needs doing for your research project, then it is real research work.

If you don't apologize for the small work and you let them see the value in it, you'll give them a positive experience.

[adel9216]

I am unsure about your specific field. But from what I can remember, as an undergrad, I have been involved in interviews transcriptions, conducting qualitative interviews with research participants, coding documents for research projects. I have also done some of the "repetitive stuff" to help out and I still do sometimes as a PhD student, and I am always happy to do so if it can help, as long as it is not the sole thing I am doing. I do agree that it would be best that these repetitive tasks do not compose the biggest chunk of the research assistantship. You want your students to get excited about the world of research, so I agree that it's important to give them tasks that are going to give them a glimpse into this exciting world.

:)

[larryc]

Could you name your field and your research? "Non-lab, non-data" is pretty damn broad.

I am a historian and I have gotten good use from undergrad RAs in the past. As folks say it has to be repetitive and you have to meet with them regularly. I have had students do time-consuming stuff like researching through old newspapers for stories about X, gathering images I can use in my teaching, transcribing historic documents. I meet with them every week and give plenty of feedback the first weeks.

[ergative]

How organized are your files? I could happily imagine paying an undergrad RA a few hundred bucks to scroll through my Mendeley account, remove duplicate entries, make sure the citation data is accurate, regularize file names, and so on. I could even give them a list of tags that I see myself using often when doing a lit review, and having them read abstracts to see if the tags are good to apply.

Not only would this be useful to you, but it would show undergrads the nitty-gritty of keeping references and research organized, and train them to do it right from the start.

[Morden]

I've had undergraduate RAs create annotated bibliographies of scholarly articles. It was useful.

[Caracal]

Could you name your field and your research? "Non-lab, non-data" is pretty damn broad.

I am a historian and I have gotten good use from undergrad RAs in the past. As folks say it has to be repetitive and you have to meet with them regularly. I have had students do time-consuming stuff like researching through old newspapers for stories about X, gathering images I can use in my teaching, transcribing historic documents. I meet with them every week and give plenty of feedback the first weeks.

I'm a historian too, and I have lots of lists I've transcribed in the archives over the years. To make any use of this stuff I have to cross reference it with various other sources and documents. I've done that work with the things that were most important for my work, but there's a lot of other stuff I haven't ever done because you could spend a lifetime on it and I'm not sure it would really be worth the effort.

Varies by field and research, but I'd think that is kind of the sweet spot. I wouldn't want to be entrusting an RA with anything time sensitive or vital for my work, but there's a lot of stuff where it's possible that there's something really interesting or useful that I'm never going to find because of time constraints.