National Research Council (NRC)
Assessment of Research Doctorate
Programs
Faculty Questionnaire - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Basic Information
- What is the NRC Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs?
- When will the Faculty Survey take place?
- How will faculty be contacted in order to participate in the questionnaire?
- When will the faculty questionnaire close?
Technical Issues
- What can I do if I have lost my username or password?
- Won't the NRC e-mails get caught in our spam filters?
- Can I exit the questionnaire and return to complete it at later time?
- Can faculty print out the questionnaire?
Clarification of Specfic Questions
- Several questions already have data in them. How were these values determined?
- How will the areas of specialization be used? [Question A4]
- Why does NRC ask me for the variants of my name? [Question D1]
- Is there any easy way to find variants of my name? [Question D1]
- Why does the NRC ask for the zip codes that appeared on my publications? [Question D2]
- How many years of publication and citation information is being collected?
- NRC is asking for me to list books. Any advice on listing these? [Question D3]
- I have published several book chapters in the last five (or ten) years. Where do I list these?
- Do I need to list all my papers and journal articles? Why? [Question D4]
Faculty CVs
- If I upload my CV, I shouldn't have to fill out the publications questions, right?
- What format can I submit my CV in?
Definitional Issues
- We are asked in Question F1 to provide information about the doctoral students we've advised in the past five years. How exactly is that five-year period defined?
- What is the additional questionnaire alluded to in Question J1?
Participation and Response Rate
- Another faculty member in my department did not receive a letter from the NRC. Why was he/she not identified to participate?
- How will programs be able to follow up with faculty to encourage a high response rate?
- Faculty in the Colleges of Business, Education, and Social Work are not participating in this assessment. Why are they not included in this study?
1. What is the NRC Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs?
The NRC Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs is an effort to help universities improve the quality of their doctoral programs through benchmarking; providing potential students and the public with accessible, readily available information on doctoral programs nationwide; and enhance the nation's overall research capacity. The National Research Council conducted other assessments that were published in 1982 and 1995.
The previous studies gathered data that described doctoral programs-size, university resources, program faculty productivity, and student characteristics. The 2006 study will expand these data to include information relating to PhD student financing, teaching, and other aspects of student resources. The data that will be collected for the study are found on the Questionnaires section of the NRC site.
Following data collection, the Committee to Assess Research-Doctorate Programs will publish a summary analysis of the data and will release the data on the web. The web database will also contain software that will permit users to conduct their own analyses of the data. [NRC]
A list of participating Illinois doctoral programs is available online. Programs defined as "emerging programs:" library and information science, nuclear engineering, and urban and regional planning are not eligible to participate in the faculty questionnaire and also will not be rated.
2. When will the Faculty Survey take place?
The Faculty Questionnaire will be an electronic survey that faculty members can access via the Internet using a username and password.
At this point, we anticipate that faculty will receive a first notification from NRC about the faculty questionnaires in early or mid-January. However, we strongly encourage faculty to preview the faculty questionnaire in advance. Faculty may also wish to polish up their CVs and spend some time gathering information for inclusion in the questionnaire.
E-mail communications from Provost Linda Katehi and Graduate College Dean Richard Wheeler have preceded communications from NRC.
3. How will faculty be contacted in order to participate in the questionnaire?
NRC will contact faculty by both e-mail and U.S. Mail. Both communications will provide faculty with a unique username and password, as well as a link to the online NRC faculty questionnaire. Faculty who do not complete the questionnaire in a timely fashion will receive additional mail and e-mail reminders from NRC.
4. When will the faculty questionnaire close?
The faculty questionnaire is scheduled to close on February 15, 2007 at 5:00 EST (4:00 CST) for those who wish to be included in the pool of faculty that will be sampled and asked to rate other programs in their field.
Questionnaires may still be completed until April 1, 2007 and be included in the final data.
5. What can I do if I have lost my username or password?
Please contact Mathematica Policy Research (MPR), coordinator of the NRC Assessment, at NRCAssessment@mathematica-mpr.com, with your request for your username and/or password. The University of Illinois's MPR Liaison will contact you shortly.
6. Won't the NRC emails get caught in our spam filters?
We have worked with CITES so that the campus spam filter will not block email from the NRC address, in order to increase the likelihood that messages sent from this address will be received by the intended recipients. However, individual spam filters might still filter out messages from the NRC-Assessment@bhew.nas.edu address. You may wish to make sure your e-mail program recognizes that address as a safe one or watch for it in your filtered mail.
7. Can I exit the questionnaire and return to complete it at later time?
Yes. You are not required to complete the faculty questionnaire in a single session, and you can return to the questionnaire as many times as you wish prior to your final submission of the data.
8. Can faculty print out the questionnaire?
The ability to print the completed questionnaire is not currently a feature built into the faculty questionnaire. At this point, the only way to save a hard copy of a completed questionnaire is to use the "print screen" option on one's PC.
9. Several questions already have data in them. How were these values determined?
These answers were extracted from institutional data and provided to NRC by the Graduate College.
- A1: From hire date in institutional HR appointment data
- A2: Faculty were identified in lists collaboratively developed by the Graduate College and participating programs and sent to NRC
in late November. Committees chaired and served were extracted from the Graduate College's dissertation committee database. Additional
information about committees:
- Counts include both preliminary and final examination service-please note that if a faculty member serves on both committees for a student, that the committee service is only counted once.
- Are organized by doctoral degree program (and not by department).
- Data only include committees that have been sent to the Graduate College for approval.
- If the director of dissertation research is not formally appointed as chair of the student's committee, he/she is nevertheless counted as the chair for purposes of the survey. In other words, chairing the committee is presumed to be the same as being the student's director of research in this study at Illinois.
- A3: Participation in program graduate admissions and/or curriculum committees was identified by programs when developing the faculty lists with the Graduate College.
- A4/A5: Primary and secondary fields of specialization were provided by programs when developing the faculty lists.
- F1: Student advisors were extracted from dissertation committees sent to the Graduate College by programs and tracked in our database since 1994. Year of degree award was extracted from the academic history stored in the EDW. Faculty need to complete the current position, employer and address information.
10. How will the areas of specialization be used? [Question A4]
The Faculty Questionnaire will allow the respondents to indicate up to seven specializations. This question will be modified to have a fill-in part and also include a drop-down box of the fields and subfields in the taxonomy developed by NRC. Primary and secondary fields of specialization were provided by programs when developing the faculty lists and pre-filled by the Graduate College. Faculty will be asked to fill in their specialization and select the field or subfield that best describes their specialization.
This question is primarily meant to identify the range of research interests within a program and also to identify niche programs. [NRC]
11. Why does NRC ask me for the variants of my name? [Question D1]
D1.
[FOR THOSE IN THE HUMANITIES , IT WILL BE THE LAST 10 YEARS-1996-2006]
Under what names or variants of your name have you published books or articles in the past five years (e.g. Jane Doe, Jane H.
Doe, J. H. Doe or other prior names)?
NRC will be relying upon citation analysis, a standard tool of information science, to identify publications and count the citations to them in other publications. Citation analysis is commonly used in the science, engineering, and social science fields to measure the impact a particular publication has on the field. It is less common in the humanities; however, we strongly encourage faculty in all disciplines to answer all questions thoroughly. It is most likely that citation analysis will NOT be used in the humanities due to the lack of reliable sources for this information.
It is very important that you provide every variant of your name under which you may have published, including first and middle names or initials.
Faculty may be at particular risk of citation undercount if:
- Your name is common
- Your name is not spelled or abbreviated consistently in your published work
- Your name has changed (due to marriage, etc.)
- You were on leave, and you provided publishers with non-UIUC contact information
12. Is there any easy way to find variants of my name? [Question D1]
The University Library has a trial subscription to a citation analysis tool called Scopus: www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/notespopup.php?instid=396840 (which should still be available to us during the course of this survey). Click on "Author Search," and enter your last and first name. Scopus has cross-referencing tools that enable it to provide a list of different variants of your name as it has appeared in publications. For instance, a query on Franke, Steven yields:
| Franke, Steven J. |
| Franke, S. J. |
| Franke, S. |
| Franke, Steve J. |
Please note that while Scopus is a tool that can help you identify variants of your name (and conduct citation analysis of your research, if you publish in the science, engineering, or social science fields), its data is not perfect, and we encourage you to still look through your own publication records for variants of your name.
13. Why does the NRC ask for the zip codes that appeared on my publications? [Question D2]
D2.
[FOR THOSE IN THE HUMANITIES, IT WILL BE THE LAST 10 YEARS- 1996-2006]
Please list the Zip Codes that appeared on your publications as a reflection of your professional location between 2001 and
2006.
ZIP code is a critical tool for reliably resolving name ambiguities, and NRC will use ZIP code data in these cases. Despite the ambiguous wording on the faculty questionnaire, the NRC does not want the publication's ZIP code. Instead, please indicate the ZIP codes you would have reported as your address when submitting that article for publication. These most likely will be for institutional ZIP codes, but you may also have submitted publications from a home address. Additionally, you may have also been on sabbatical during the past five- (or ten-year) period-perhaps you submitted an article from an address while you were on leave? Having your personal and professional addresses handy during this process can save time and help ensure an accurate picture.
14. How many years of publication and citation information is being collected?
For faculty in life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, mathematics, and engineering, NRC is asking for five years of publication data.
Faculty in the humanities fields should provide ten years of publications data. Participating humanities programs at Illinois are:
- Classical Philology
- Musicology
- Philosophy
- Slavic Language & Literature
- Spanish
- Theatre
- Art History
- Comparative Literature
- English
- French
- German
- History
- Italian
15. NRC is asking for me to list books. Any advice on listing these? [Question D3]
D3.
[FOR THOSE IN THE HUMANITIES , IT WILL BE THE LAST 10 YEARS-- 1996-2006]
Please list the titles of books that you have authored, co-authored or edited from 2001 to 2006.
Journal publications can often be collected from a number of indexes, using the information you have provided about your name and zip code. However, book publication is not tracked in many indexes, and NRC will be able to collect this information only if you provide it in question D3.
In order to best represent your scholarship, please do not abbreviate the titles of any of your books. We recommend that you provide the complete title of your books, including the series title.
For example:
Nicholas Temperley, Bound for America: Three British Composers, Music in American Life [series]; University of Illinois Press, 2003
16. I have published several book chapters in the last five (or ten) years. Where do I list these?
Book chapters should be listed under question D5. Be sure to provide the complete chapter title as well as book title. Inclusion of a series title, if applicable, is useful as well. Please do not abbreviate any titles.
D5.
Please list any other scholarly product (e.g. shows curated, databases assembled, etc.) from the period 2001 to 2006 not covered above.
- If you are in the Humanities, please list any other scholarly product from the past 10 years (1996-2006) not covered above.
- For All Faculty, If you wish to list chapters contributed to edited volumes, please list them here showing chapter title and volume title. Alternatively, we can extract them from your CV, which you should attach.
17. Do I need to list all my papers and journal articles? Why? [Question D4]
D4.
Please list any papers you authored or co-authored from 2001 to 2006.
- Faculty in the Arts and Humanities: Since ISI coverage of publications in the Arts and Humanities is spotty, it is important that these faculty provide as complete a listing as possible of papers authored or co-authored in the past 10 years (1996-2006). If you would like to browse the ISI website, here is the link: http://scientific.thomson.com/mjl/
- Papers listed on your CV: If you upload your CV, there is no need to reenter papers already listed there. You will have an opportunity to upload your CV when you reach the end of the questionnaire.
- Additional papers not included on your CV: To include papers not on your CV, you can upload a list of these papers by using this link [NRC will provide a LINK].
- For journal articles: Please remember to add the volume number.
- For articles in edited volumes: Please enter these in D5.
For Faculty in Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Social Sciences
No. ISI (http://scientific.thomsom.com/mjl/) provides good publication coverage for faculty outside of the humanities, and NRC should be able to identify your citations, especially with clear answers from D1 & D2.
For Faculty in the Humanities
Yes. For faculty in the humanities, ISI coverage is spotty. It is very important that humanities faculty thoroughly complete question D4 for the ten-year period 1996-2006.
18. If I upload my CV, I shouldn't have to fill out the publications questions, right?
The Faculty Questionnaire asks participants to attach their CV to assist the NRC in verifying the publication and career path data. Be certain that your publications for the past five or ten years (for STEM and humanities faculty, respectively) are included in your CV. NRC has not shared its process for systematically extracting faculty publication data from CVs, and we believe that it may be in the best interests of our programs' ratings for faculty to provide complete publication information within the survey itself (questions D3, D4, D5). We strongly encourage all faculty to thoroughly answer questions D3 & D5. Additionally, we advise humanities faculty to thoroughly complete question D4 (journal articles). Most STEM and social sciences faculty do not need to complete D4. ISI (http://scientific.thomson.com/mjl/) provides good publication coverage for faculty outside of the humanities, and NRC should be able to identify yourpublications, especially with clear answers from D1 & D2.
19. What format can I submit my CV in?
NRC prefers that faculty submit their CVs in PDF, RTF, or Word formats.
20. We are asked in Question F1 to provide information about the doctoral students we've advised in the past five years. How exactly is that five-year period defined?
F1.
Please provide a list of doctoral students at your current institution for whom you served as primary dissertation adviser who have completed their studies and received their doctorate in the past five (5) years (2001-02 through 2005-06). For each doctorate holder, please indicate the year in which the degree was awarded and current position and employer, if known.
- The Graduate College has pre-filled the degree recipients, for your convenience. These names were extracted from the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) and tied to faculty from final committees submitted to the Graduate College (director of research/committee chair).
- Include only students who graduated during the academic years 2001-2006 through 2005-2006. Therefore, a student who graduated in May 2001 should not be included in the survey.
- We have NOT included students who have asked that information about their enrollment at the University be kept confidential under the conditions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). We are therefore not allowed to release that student's name to an outside organization. Please do not add such a student's name to the list and inadvertently reveal his/her identity.
21. What is the additional questionnaire alluded to in Question J1?
J1.
Would you be willing to answer an additional questionnaire that would ask you to rate the overall quality of other doctoral programs in your field?
One component of the rating process involves an "implicit" or anchoring study, in which a sample of faculty will be provided with data including faculty lists and other information about a sample of programs in their field and asked to rate or rank them based upon certain characteristics. Regression analysis will then be used to determine which quantitative variables most closely predict program ratings. If you do not submit your faculty questionnaire by February 15, 2007, you will not be eligible for consideration for participation in this process. This questionnaire is expected sometime after April 1, 2007. Additional information is available on the NRC Web site. [NRC]
22. Another faculty member in my department did not receive a letter from the NRC. Why was he/she not identified to participate?
The NRC has divided faculty into categories of Core, New, and Associated, based upon different types of appointments and participation in doctoral education with a program. NRC is principally concerned with participation on dissertation committees in the last five academic years.
Only faculty appearing on the Core and New faculty lists will be invited to participate in the faculty questionnaire. Faculty listed ONLY as Associated faculty will not receive faculty questionnaires.
Additional information about the NRC definitions of faculty is available on the NRC Web site.
23. How will programs be able to follow up with faculty to encourage a high response rate?
Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) will send e-mail and mail reminders to non-responding faculty, and it has indicated it will also follow up by telephone. Additionally, NRC will report to the Institutional Coordinator the percent of non-responders in each program and ask for program assistance with encouraging participation. The names of non-responders will not be released.
24. Faculty in the Colleges of Business, Education, and Social Work are not participating in this assessment. Why are they not included in this study?
The NRC Assessment, first begun in the early 1980s, has focused on traditional research-oriented PhD programs. However, NRC has been expanding this focus with each assessment, and this year's study increases the number of ranked programs from 41 to 57, primarily through the inclusion of programs like agriculture and expansion of the life sciences.
The addition of a new category called "emerging fields" will not be ranked, but will encompass programs like information science, bioinformatics, and film studies. Faculty in these programs are also not participating in the faculty questionnaire.
However, disciplines like education, business, and social work remain outside the realm of this study at this time. The exclusion of these fields may have more to do with limited NRC resources than with any implicit estimation about the scholarly merits of these fields.
Future NRC assessments may expand to include these disciplines.
Have more questions? Visit the list of FAQs on the NRC web site, or e-mail us at gradnrcsurvey@uiuc.edu.
