Planning the Summer Research Experience

The summer research period is designed to give Tufts-Laidlaw Scholars a meaningful, mentored, student-led research experience. This page offers suggested topics and a planning framework that mentors and scholars may find useful as they scope the six-week research period.

Suggested Topics for an Initial Mentor-Scholar Meeting

• Scholar goals: What does the scholar hope to learn from the experience?
• Project scope: What is the core research question or project aim, and what can reasonably be completed in six weeks?
• Research context: What background literature, methods, data, tools, or techniques will the scholar need?
• Ethics and safety: Does the project involve human subjects, interviews, surveys, identifiable data, lab safety concerns, travel, fieldwork, community partners, animals, or other ethical or safety considerations?
• Meeting rhythm: How often will mentor and scholar meet, and how should work be shared?
• Milestones: What should the scholar aim to complete by the midpoint and end of the six-week period?

Six-Week Research Planning Framework

• Before the summer: Confirm the research question, project scope, expected outputs, meeting schedule, and any ethical, IRB, safety, data, or access requirements.
• Week 1: Orient the scholar to the project, literature, methods, people, spaces, archives, datasets, or tools.
• Week 2: Develop an early work product, such as an annotated bibliography, protocol, data plan, interview guide, lab plan, archive map, coding scheme, or analysis plan.
• Week 3: Review early progress, discuss preliminary findings or obstacles, and refine scope if useful.
• Week 4: Move from research activity toward analysis, interpretation, figures, themes, results, or preliminary conclusions.
• Week 5: Review poster, paper outline, or early written sections and provide feedback on clarity, evidence, methods, and claims.
• Week 6: Review final synthesis, presentation plans, and possible next steps beyond the summer.

Planning Resource

Tufts Human Resources SMART Goals Worksheet

https://access.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/documents/hr/hr_SMARTgoalWorksheet.pdf

This worksheet can help mentors and scholars turn a broad summer research idea into clearer goals, measures of progress, and milestones.

RACI Chart

A RACI chart helps clarify who is responsible for different parts of a project. RACI stands for:

• Responsible: The person completing the task.
• Accountable: The person ultimately answerable for the work or decision.
• Consulted: People whose input should be sought before moving forward.
• Informed: People who should be kept updated on progress or decisions.

For Laidlaw research projects, a simple RACI chart can help the scholar, faculty mentor, graduate students, lab staff, community partners, or other collaborators understand how work will be shared. This can be especially helpful when a scholar is contributing to a larger research project or working with more than one advisor.

Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a visual timeline that maps project tasks across the available weeks. For a six-week summer research project, a simple Gantt chart can help identify when the scholar will complete background reading, training, data collection, analysis, drafting, poster preparation, and final revisions.

Even a basic version can be useful. The goal is not to create a complex project-management document, but to help the scholar and mentor agree on the major phases of the work, anticipate dependencies, and leave enough time for feedback and final outputs.

How These Tools Might Be Used

• Use a RACI chart when the project involves several people, shared responsibilities, or external partners.
• Use a Gantt chart when the project has multiple phases, dependencies, or deliverables due at different points in the summer.
• Keep both tools simple enough to be useful during regular mentor-scholar check-ins.