COVID-19 response and planning for LAS research and graduate education
March 19, 2020
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ISU is developing new strategies to advance research and graduate education through remote work, including contingency plans. More information can be found at https://www.research.iastate.edu/covid-19-research/. The health and safety of students, faculty and staff are of paramount importance. With this memo, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is establishing expectations for the safe conduct of research and graduate education.
Research activities that can be performed remotely (e.g., writing, analyses, computation) must be conducted off-campus; this applies to all faculty, staff, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate researchers. For research activities that involve laboratory or field work, departments chairs are asked to work with their faculty to collect and share the following information.
- Which research groups are requesting permission to continue conducting research on campus or in the field? Those research groups are asked to submit plans covering the following information:
- What is the rationale and timeline for these studies, and how many researchers will be present in research spaces?
- Who will need access to which buildings or facilities? Which studies will take place in the field or on farms?
- What precautions are being taken to ensure social distancing and safe working spaces? Keep in mind that infected individuals may be asymptomatic. Activities that require access to campus facilities (as deemed by a supervisor) should adjust operations by creating rotation and shift schedules with a small number of people (with at least two for safety considerations) to ensure the CDC-outlined distance of six feet between people is maintained while ensuring safety.
The initial plan should cover the next two weeks (March 19 – April 1). Department chairs
will track and approve plans, provided the research cannot be performed remotely and
proper safety protocols are followed. Plans need to be updated and reapproved every
two weeks.
- Emergency contacts. Each faculty member or research group should establish an emergency phone tree that outlines who to contact for specific situations and scenarios. This should include contact information for a person who could take over as group leader, should the principal investigator fall ill.
- Communication plans. Each research group should have a communication plan. This will generally include regularly scheduled phone calls, videoconferences, or electronic communications. All meetings should be virtual.
- Student mentoring plans. Graduate students should consult their major professors to revise plans to advance their thesis work for the remainder of Spring 2020. This might include analyzing data, writing a literature review, or other remote activities. Graduate students and their mentors should consult to identify a POS committee member who can function as the student’s primary advisor, should the major professor require sick leave.
- Contingency plans, in case of severely restricted access. In some cities, the pandemic has necessitated shelter-in-place measures, with travel to campus for only the most essential research tasks (e.g. caring for animals, filling a liquid nitrogen tank, etc). Research groups should develop plans for this contingency and should share key logistical details with department chairs. The Office of the VPR has provided planning guidelines: http://www.research.iastate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Research-Continuity-Plan.pdf
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