Professional Issues
These are issues and comments addressed to the graduate student.
Be professional in everything you do from TA training/work to RA work to course work. Do everything to your best ability, since this influences professors' opinions of you, and hence impact their letters of reference when you apply for a job upon graduation. Manage your time well and develop professional skills (e.g., communication, research, computer, teaching/presentation) to enhance your job opportunities. See the IMS new researchers guide.
Below are specific issues involving graduate students that have arisen in the past.
1. Teaching assistantship and TA duties
No trades unless you have permission from your instructors.Satisfactory performance is required to continue with a teaching assistantship.
2. RA duties
Satisfactory performance is required to continue with a research assistantship.
3. Outside work
If you do outside work, such as statistical consulting or proctoring, please be careful that the time involved is not too much to impact on your TA/RA duties and research. Also when you sign any documents relating to such work, state your position clearly (e.g., M.Sc. student in Statistics, or Ph.D. student in Statistics).
4. Co-authorship
Generally, there are publications coming from a PhD thesis, and sometimes from a MSc thesis. For any publications, discuss co-authorship with your supervisor(s). Unless you have independently done all of the research and writing, including selection of the topic yourself, normally supervisors are co-authors with you as the primary author. For RA work supported from a supervisor's grant, you would likely be a co-author if your contribution is substantial enough (meaning more than computer tasks).
Maybe you've discussed your research with others and have received useful ideas from others. However you should never add someone as an co-author without their permission. If you are a primary author handling the submission of the manuscript to a research journal, let your co-authors know about it and get their feedback on the choice of the appropriate journal.
5. Computer code
Because your code is typically shared with collaborators, get into a good habit of writing well-documented, reproducible code. Reproducible code means that the code will run easily if the data sets have been updated or if slightly different inputs are used.
Normally supervisors expect to receive all computer code from your research work, particularly if you have been supported from a supervisor's research grant.
Note that UBC policy is that many categories of intellectual property (including software) cannot normally be commercialized unilaterally by the inventors (regardless of whether the supervisor or the student did the work). Normally, in the first instance such intellectual property is assigned to UBC (see http://www.universitycounsel.ubc.ca/policies/policy88.pdf). Subsequently, the inventors may share in the proceeds, so it is a good idea to check with your supervisor early in your program to agree on how contributions will be determined if commercialization takes place.
