Committee D: Undergraduate Research Project

Committee charge

Committee D is charged with reviewing the progress of the SPS effort, assessing the merits of a follow-up workshop at the 2007 National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) or elsewhere and recommending a further course of action for the Council. The committee will prepare a document summarizing the committee’s accomplishments, recommendations and decisions to date to share with the rest of the Council. The document should include a timeline for accomplishing the committee’s goals for the rest of the academic year.

Committee members

Zaunbrecher Katherine Chair (Zone 10) katherinez@louisiana.edu

Borgardt James Vice-Chair (Zone 3) borgardt@juniata.edu

Anz-Meador Phillip (Zone 16) anzmefda@erau.edu

Burnette Donald (Zone 6) donb@phys.ufl.edu

Lynch Morgan (Zone 13) m.lynch@yahoo.com

Hehn Jack (SPS staff) jhehn@aip.org

Mader Catherine (Zone 7) mader@hope.edu

Edwards Trenton (Zone 11) tgedward@coe.edu

Some Background Information

---Millions of dollars each year are spent on undergraduate research experiences, but there seems to be a need to better document the value and impact of these experiences. SPS has long involvement in this issue---awarding undergraduate research grants annually, initiating and sustaining the Undergraduate Research Clearinghouse on The Nucleus, supporting the Journal of Undergraduate Research, supporting travel awards for students to present their research at national and international meeting. In response to last year’s committee efforts the following actions have resulted:

1) SPS hosted, in summer 2006, a workshop held in conjunction with the Council on Undergraduate Research meeting entitled, “SPS/CUR WORKSHOP on METRICS and RESOURCES for UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH(ERS”, see the wiki at http://spscurworkshop.pbwiki.com/ for more details about the workshop

2) Begun a qualitative assessment of the SPS intern journals by Ethnography & Evaluation Research of University of Colorado

3) Begun gathering undergraduate research journals from summer 2006 through SPS---about 10 students have contributed

4) Sent letter of intent to Teagle Foundation; were not invited to submit full proposal

links and references

Draft 1

Draft 2

Questions to Consider

-What are the roles that the student should and can be playing?

-What determines the success of a program?

-Work on broadening the surveys to go beyond graduate school. How else are the students using the physics?

-Consider the intangible as well as tangible effects.

-How can we get more secondary eduation students into the lab to do research?

-Should something be done to bring high school students into research?

Decisions

1) Workshop

• look at history (CUR, etc.)
• tools -existing, discipline specific
• build connections
• outcomes -short and long term
• update best practices

2)NCUR

• fact-finding -appropriateness?

3) Pilot study proposal

• endorsed by the committee