---
# System prepended metadata

title: DSL Project Questionnaire

---

# DSL Project Questionnaire

The Deep Skies Lab community welcomes and enthusiastically supports projects and collaborations with outside researchers and organizations. We are thrilled that you are interested in working with us! In order to proceed, we’d like to ask you to fill out the questionnaire below. 

We know this might seem a little unusual, but we designed this questionnaire to be valuable to both you and us. Depending on the state of your project idea, this questionnaire might help you clarify some logistical details about how the project might go. Teams work best when expectations and rules are clear, so we hope this document will give you a basis for onboarding your future team. It also helps us ensure that we are connecting our junior members with research projects and teams that provide a safe, positive learning environment. 

We also recognize that especially questions about credit, collaboration policies, mentoring and team work can be really difficult to answer (they're difficult for us, too!). We don't expect you to have all the answers, and we are available to help you!
If you have any questions or would like to talk through any of the points below, don’t hesitate to reach out to the DSL advisory board. 

#### Title: 

#### Project Proposer: 

#### Are you comfortable convening and leading the project yourself? 

## Why?
* What is the problem to be solved?
* Why is this problem important?
* What progress do you think you can make during this project?

## What?
* What resources are needed to complete the project?
* Is any data set needed ready to be used, or are there significant data processing/cleaning steps? Note: Unless the hack itself is a data cleaning hack (totally valid hack, by the way!), it’s best if the data access/processing/cleaning is done in advance of the hack week.
* What computational resources are needed, and is access to them secured?

## How?
* Broadly, what are the steps and tasks needed to complete the project?
* What’s the overall time frame of the project?

## Who?
* Are there any minimum knowledge requirements for helping out with the project?
* What space is there for project team members with little prior knowledge? E.g. in trying out code, writing documentation, helping with tutorials ...
* What training opportunities does the project provide?
* What skills are particularly relevant to the project?

## Project Status
* What is the status of the project? E.g. is this a relatively new and vague idea you’re hoping to try out? A project that’s been ongoing for a while, but you’re hoping to bring in new expertise? Is this a project where a DSL member might take on leadership (e.g. a graduate student project) that might require some coordination at a higher level (e.g. a graduate student supervisor)?
* Is there funding available for the project, and in particular for a DSL project team member? 
* Are there other collaborations involved (for example, does this use proprietary/restricted data) and are there pathways to make sure that all team members can access the data?


## Expectations
* What expectations do you have for team members? This includes the roles and responsibilities they might take on, their time commitment and availability for meetings and responses etc. (Note that these should ultimately be agreed upon among team members)

## Credit
* What policies are in place with respect to academic credit and co-authorship? (Please be aware that for any project officially supported by the DSL, its guidelines on co-authorship need to be respected and applied)

## Mentoring
* What resources (technical, career advancement etc) are you able to provide to your team members? This could e.g. include writing letters of recommendation, nomination for prizes, a mentorship relationship.

## Team Work
* What strategies and structures are you planning on implementing to provide a safe and positive learning and working environment for all team members?


