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SOM 2520: Embark Mentorship

Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

O'Dowd Hall, Room 428
586 Pioneer Drive
Rochester, MI 48309
(location map)
(248) 370-3634
   

Authorizing Body:

OUWB Office of Research

Date Issued:

May 18, 2026

Last Update:

May 18, 2026

Rationale:

OUWB is committed to identifying Embark project mentors who have the experience and time to provide effective guidance on research design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, and the dissemination of results. The effort required to support these projects is significant. The following guidelines are provided to ensure that:

  1. Faculty have adequate time to mentor the students they agree to support while also meeting other responsibilities to OUWB, Oakland University (OU), and/or Corewell Health (CH); and
  2. The risk to students is minimized if faculty members advising Embark projects as primary mentors are no longer available to serve in that role.

Scope and Applicability:

All OUWB and OU faculty who mentor Embark research projects.

Standard Practice Guidelines:

Oakland University & Corewell Health-employed faculty will be limited to three (3) Embark projects per year or up to twelve (12) total projects as the primary mentor. Circumstances may arise that reasonably warrant a primary mentor exceeding the recommended mentoring limits, up to a maximum of five (5) projects per year. Exceptions may be considered under circumstances, including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Situations in which a primary mentor has an established protocol, project, or database that can be easily extended to include new Embark projects with minimal protocol changes, data acquisition concerns, or data quality issues.
  • Inclusion of co-mentors on Embark projects would distribute the workload and make it possible for primary mentors to support more projects. Co-mentors would need to be actively involved in research design and in data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation, and would agree to serve as primary mentors if the original primary mentor is no longer available. Limits on co-mentorship would be the same as those for primary mentorship.
  • Situations in which a primary mentor advises students using literature-based methodologies, such as systematic and scoping reviews.

Procedures:

  1. These guidelines will be communicated to all faculty by the Dean’s Office.
  2. The Embark directors will monitor mentor participation and, when appropriate, advise faculty to seek exceptions to these guidelines.
After review and recommendation by the Research Committee, the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies will review requests for exceptions and, if deemed appropriate, make recommendations to the Dean regarding potential increased Embark project numbers up to 5/year as primary mentor or co-mentor.

Definitions:

Research: Systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to answer questions, test hypotheses, meet objectives, or solve problems.

Related Policies and Forms:

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Appendix:

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