The National Research Council will hold a convocation regarding the recent effort on assessing research-doctorate programs on Friday, March 4, from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill and we hope you will be able to attend. The convocation will have two parts. The first part will focus on analytic uses of the data from the recent study and database, and the second part will focus on ideas for future directions for this sort of effort. The agenda will be divided as follows:
- Papers from administrators, institutional researchers, academic researchers and policy analysts that illustrate the uses that have been made of the data and ranges of rankings. Examples include:
- Comparisons with similar programs: how were peer groups chosen? What data beyond the NRC data were brought in? What qualitative factors were considered?
- Within the university: What conversations were enhanced by use of the study data? What additional information was used?
- In the research community: Did you find uses for the NRC data? If you found the data problematic, what problems did you identify? What modifications did you need to make to the data presented by the NRC? Did you find the NRC quantification of variability to be helpful?
A constructive discussion of lessons learned and guidance for a possible future study. In particular, if the study is updated, what would be helpful in assuring a timely, less expensive, and more useful product in the future (for example: fewer data elements that cover the most important variables, clearer directions to assure data quality, changes in the taxonomy so that fields map to CIPS codes, exploring alternative sources for bibliometric data, greater - or less-emphasis on ranges of rankings). A discussion of more general approaches to making the study more useful will also be encouraged. |