| Overall Rating | Gold - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 74.80 |
| Liaison | Gioia Thompson |
| Submission Date | March 2, 2020 |
University of Vermont
AC-9: Research and Scholarship
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
9.96 / 12.00 |
Dan
Harvey Business Ops Administrator VP Research Admin Office |
"---"
indicates that no data was submitted for this field
Part 1. Sustainability research
1,112
Number of employees engaged in sustainability research:
139
Percentage of employees that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
12.50
Part 2. Sustainability research by department
50
Number of academic departments that include at least one employee who conducts sustainability research:
31
Percentage of departments that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
62
Research Inventory
Inventory of the institution’s sustainability research:
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A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the research inventory:
UVM uses a service called Academic Analytics (AA) to track and compare our research to other institutions. In the past we have relied on faculty self reporting to complete this credit. This year, in an effort to be more comprehensive and not rely on survey responses we used AA instead.
AA provided us with a list of 1112 names of people in their system during our three year timeframe. Because of the way their database is populated and updated (people are added annually but not removed regularly) this number is artificially high. We do not have a perfect tool for tracking research on campus but other offices estimate a lower number, between 574 (SPA Active PI list as of 6/13/2019) and 751 (OIR’s 2018 faculty submission list to AA). In lieu of having an accurate number, we decided to use the largest and therefore most conservative number.
The Office of Sustainability (OoS) staff created a keywords list and AA staff generated a report of all research in the previous 3 years that matched any of the 417 keywords. 333 works by 136 researchers were returned. Two OoS employees independently verified the report to identify false matches and confirm qualified research. Works by 133 of those researchers were confirmed as being sustainability research. The home departments of those researchers were used to create the number of departments conducting sustainability research. The number of total departments conducting research was determined by seeing how many departments were represented in the list of 1112 names of researchers, ending up with 50. The Institute for Environment vetted the list and identified an additional 6 researchers doing sustainability research who were also on the original list of 1112 names and 3 more who were not. We included the 6 who came from two more unique departments, bringing our total to 139 sustainability researchers representing 31 departments.
AA provided us with a list of 1112 names of people in their system during our three year timeframe. Because of the way their database is populated and updated (people are added annually but not removed regularly) this number is artificially high. We do not have a perfect tool for tracking research on campus but other offices estimate a lower number, between 574 (SPA Active PI list as of 6/13/2019) and 751 (OIR’s 2018 faculty submission list to AA). In lieu of having an accurate number, we decided to use the largest and therefore most conservative number.
The Office of Sustainability (OoS) staff created a keywords list and AA staff generated a report of all research in the previous 3 years that matched any of the 417 keywords. 333 works by 136 researchers were returned. Two OoS employees independently verified the report to identify false matches and confirm qualified research. Works by 133 of those researchers were confirmed as being sustainability research. The home departments of those researchers were used to create the number of departments conducting sustainability research. The number of total departments conducting research was determined by seeing how many departments were represented in the list of 1112 names of researchers, ending up with 50. The Institute for Environment vetted the list and identified an additional 6 researchers doing sustainability research who were also on the original list of 1112 names and 3 more who were not. We included the 6 who came from two more unique departments, bringing our total to 139 sustainability researchers representing 31 departments.
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
UVM defines departments differently between course offerings and research. PRE-5 lists the higher of the two numbers (67). This number counts:
- dean's offices as departments because they host gen-ed and residence hall learning community classes that don't fall into any academic discipline
- interdisciplinary majors as their own departments because they don't fall under one academic department
However, for research the departments are defined based on researcher affiliation. No researchers are affiliated with dean's offices or interdisciplinary majors because they aren't departments in the traditional sense; they exist only to host oddball courses and programs. For that reason, our research tracking tool (Academic Analytics) doesn't have buckets for dean's offices or interdisciplinary majors. This is different than just being a department that doesn't conduct research. This is why we list a smaller number of departments (51) in this credit than PRE-5.
On the other end, there are two research departments that are not course-hosting departments, Extension and the libraries. A spreadsheet of the discrepancies between course-departments and research-departments is attached.
- dean's offices as departments because they host gen-ed and residence hall learning community classes that don't fall into any academic discipline
- interdisciplinary majors as their own departments because they don't fall under one academic department
However, for research the departments are defined based on researcher affiliation. No researchers are affiliated with dean's offices or interdisciplinary majors because they aren't departments in the traditional sense; they exist only to host oddball courses and programs. For that reason, our research tracking tool (Academic Analytics) doesn't have buckets for dean's offices or interdisciplinary majors. This is different than just being a department that doesn't conduct research. This is why we list a smaller number of departments (51) in this credit than PRE-5.
On the other end, there are two research departments that are not course-hosting departments, Extension and the libraries. A spreadsheet of the discrepancies between course-departments and research-departments is attached.
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.