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The National Research Council recently began a new assessment of doctoral programs, its first since the highly esteemed study in 1995.

Key changes include an increase in the number of disciplines included in the study, and evaluation based on data rather than ratings.

The Board On Higher Education and Workforce provides highlights:

The National Research Council is beginning its assessment of research doctorate programs. In a letter to university presidents, NRC chair, Dr. Ralph Cicerone said, "The assessment has been designed to focus on providing and disseminating new quantitative and descriptive information about doctoral programs that will be of great help to students assessing programs, to administrators and faculty evaluating these programs, and to the programs themselves."

Earlier studies were conducted in 1983 and 1995. These data, collected under uniform definitions, will be used to construct a large web-resident database for about sixty fields of study. It will permit comparisons of programs within a university and across universities, including quantitative rebased estimates of program quality. The database will be constructed so that it can be updated regularly.Results of the study will be released in 2007.

Posted by Rhys Alexander

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