2  Communication and productivity

2.1 Lab meetings

As our team grows, we will establish regular lab meetings. In these meetings, lab members will present research-in-progress or more complete research, practice poster or oral conference presentations, and discuss future plans or opportunities.

2.2 One-on-one meetings

Typically, I (Alton) will meet with new team members several times in their first month, then transition to regular 1:1 meetings every 1-2 weeks. It is my job to support your productivity. You should always feel free to reach out in between our regularly-scheduled meetings if you think a quick email or discussion would help you move forward.

2.3 Letter of understanding

For all students intending to complete a thesis with me as primary supervisor in the EBOH department, we will meet to fill out and discuss the EBOH thesis supervisor nomination/letter of understanding form. This document lays out the roles and responsibilities we have towards each other as student and supervisor. When we meet, we can discuss any additional expectations we may wish to establish for one another. For other lab members (e.g., practicum students, research assistants, postdocs), there is no formal requirement for a letter of understanding. However, I would be happy to facilitate a similar process at any time.

2.4 Microsoft OneDrive

McGill provides a large amount of storage in Microsoft OneDrive. I recommend that, with the exception of sensitive line-level data, you save all of your work to OneDrive, and also sync OneDrive to a local directory on your computer (can google “add OneDrive to file explorer” for Windows, or “sync OneDrive to Mac” for Apple computers). Note that if you plan to work somewhere without internet like an airplane, you should proactively make sure any directories you plan to analyze are set to be available offline. Except when Github is being used, OneDrive is the preferred way to share folders and ‘live’ files with other team members and external collaborators.

2.5 Server backup

We will back up specific research datasets on a secure server in the lab. Details to be added later.

2.6 Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner is a tool that can be used to manage individual tasks or todo lists and to keep track of roles and responsibilities for collaborative projects. While I’m still new to it, I’ve started using Planner for my own tasks, and plant to experiment with using it for managing research projects within the lab.