The following is reproduced from the survey description shared alongside the survey. The original survey questions can be seen here: https://forms.gle/VPBot4wTBPxRz4V99

Overview

Thank you for filling out this survey! The goal of the survey is to understand the labor we do as graduate student researchers, which is highly heterogeneous across labs, departments, and campuses. The survey will be used to understand the impacts of concerted labor actions, such as the 2022 UC-UAW strike, as well as our working conditions as student researchers more generally.

Survey Content

There are four sections on your biographical info, lab, advising relationship, and department involvement. Most of the questions are multiple choice. It should take 10-15 minutes to complete. The form does not require every question be answered, but we encourage you to fill out the entire survey. The results will be reported promptly after the survey closes.

Who should fill this out

You should fill this out if you are a graduate student researcher who works at SIO, or in an SIO lab, or you have been a graduate student researcher at SIO in the past year.

Contact Info

This survey is primarily being conducted by Cassandra Henderson (6th year PhD student at SIO, Physical Oceanography, and junior co-chair of SGSC) who you can reach out to for any questions or concerns.

Duration

The survey will close on February 1, 2024. An initial report of results (with aggregated data) will be made to the SIO grad student body no more than one month after the survey closes. All subsequent reports will be shared with the SIO grad student body.

Data Privacy

Raw data will only be handled by the SIO UAW organizing committee and the Scripps Graduate Student Council. Any results will be aggregated and anonymized before being shared outside SIO UAW OC and SGSC.

Future Work

This study focuses on Scripps Institution of Oceanography, but is also a pilot study for a future UC-wide research labor survey.

Can I edit my responses?

I just enabled this as of October 17 (oops! It wasn’t enabled before!). If you submit a second response with the same name, the first response will be removed.

Affiliation

This survey is affiliated with the SIO organizing committee of UAW 4811, and is entirely run by rank and file Graduate Student Researchers, i.e. it is not an official UAW 4811-endorsed project.

2. Questions and Results

There were 54 responses. Only responses that could be reasonably anonymized were shown.

Questions were often open ended – in those cases the responses were categorized and generalized to present a quantitative description of the responses.

5 questions (out of 34) whose responses were either not easily made anonymous, or were overly open-ended, were not shown.

2.1 Biographical

2.1.1 What program are you in?

2.1.2 What year did you enter the program?

2.1.3. What is your primary funding source?

Forms response chart. Question title: What is your primary funding source?
. Number of responses: 54 responses.

2.1.4. What degree program are you in?

Forms response chart. Question title: What degree program are you in?
. Number of responses: 16 responses.

2.2 Lab and Research

2.2.1 How many grad students and postdocs (total) are in your lab?

2.2.2 What is the most important parent funding agency for your lab?

2.2.3. What major experiments or projects is your lab involved in, presently or in the last year, if any?

2.2.4. What is the primary site of your research?

2.2.5. Do you have any field site(s)? If so, what are they? Do you have any fieldwork planned in the next ~6 months?

2.2.6. On average, how much time each year do you spend at your field sites?

Forms response chart. Question title: On average, how much time each year do you spend at your field sites?
. Number of responses: 33 responses.

2.2.7. What kind of deliverables does your lab (including you) produce for your funding agency, other than publications?

2.2.8. How involved are you in producing these deliverables, in general?

Forms response chart. Question title: How involved are you in producing these deliverables, in general?
. Number of responses: 42 responses.

2.2.9. How urgent/time sensitive are the deliverables you are involved in producing?

Forms response chart. Question title: How urgent/time sensitive are the deliverables you are involved in producing?
. Number of responses: 37 responses.

2.2.10. Does your lab rely on you having a specialized skill set or ability?

Forms response chart. Question title: Does your lab rely on you having a specialized skill set or ability?
. Number of responses: 50 responses.

2.2.11. Does your lab rely on you for carrying out routine activities or maintenance?

Forms response chart. Question title: Does your lab rely on you for carrying out routine activities or maintenance?
. Number of responses: 51 responses.

2.2.12. If you responded "regularly" or "significant involvement" to the questions above, please elaborate.

2.2.13. Does your lab or building receive regular deliveries that are critical to research operations? If so, please specify what is delivered under "other."

2.2.14. Does your lab have a close relationship with other labs? If so, which one(s)?

2.3 Advising & Work Assignments

2.3.1. How often do you normally meet with your advisor?

Forms response chart. Question title: How often do you normally meet with your advisor?
. Number of responses: 53 responses.

2.3.2. How is most work assigned to you?

2.3.3. On average, how time sensitive are most of your work assignments?

Forms response chart. Question title: On average, how time sensitive are most of your work assignments?
. Number of responses: 53 responses.

2.2.4. Overall, how much work each day is self directed?

Forms response chart. Question title: Overall, how much work each day is self directed?
. Number of responses: 53 responses.

2.3.5. How often are you assigned work which you do not consider an explicit part of your thesis?

Forms response chart. Question title: How often are you assigned work which you do not consider an explicit part of your thesis?
. Number of responses: 53 responses.

2.3.6. Do you regularly work with anyone other than your advisor?

2.3.7. What is the significance of 299 credits in your work?

Forms response chart. Question title: What is the significance of 299 credits in your work?
. Number of responses: 53 responses.

2.3.8. How supportive of the strike was your PI?

Forms response chart. Question title: How supportive of the strike was your PI?
. Number of responses: 50 responses.

2.4 Department Involvement

2.4.1. What other committees, organizations, or services are you involved with related to SIO?

2.4.2. How often are you asked by the SIO department or administration to help with department events?

Forms response chart. Question title: How often are you asked by the SIO department or administration to help with department events?
. Number of responses: 53 responses.

2.4.3. How often are you asked by the SIO department or administration to help with private donor events?

Forms response chart. Question title: How often are you asked by the SIO department or administration to help with private donor events?
. Number of responses: 53 responses.