Report on the Impact of Selective Investment and Academic Enrichment Funding at The Ohio State University

Selective Investment

Overall Indicators of Impact of Selective Investment Units
Graduate Student Indicators
Research Indicators for SI Units
Research Indicators: Comparing SI Units to Overall University

Selective Investment Units: Notable Accomplishments

1998 Award Recipients:
Electrical Engineering
Materials Science Engineering
Physics
Psychology

1999 Award Recipients:
Chemistry
History
Neuroscience
Political Science

2000 Award Recipients:
Cardiovascular Bioengineering
Economics
English
Law
Mathematics

Academic Enrichment

Selected New Programs and Centers: Notable Accomplishments

FY 1995 Funding Year:
Microscopic and Chemical Analysis Research Center
Emerging Technologies Studio
Technology-Based Interdisciplinary Education in Statistics

FY 1996 Funding Year:
Wireless Systems: ElectroScience Lab

FY 1997 Funding Year:
Institute for Ergonomics
Spectroscopy Institute
Justice for Children Practicum
Computational Linguistics Program
Net Tutorial
Music Cognition

FY 1998 Funding Year:
Design Studio 2000
Ophthalmic Optics Laboratory
Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing
Electronic Course Reserves

FY 1999 Funding Year:
Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities
Mathematics and Statistics Learning Center
Collaborative Midwifery Graduate Program

FY 2000 Funding Year:
Ethnomusicology
Research, Training and Service Through a Legislation Clinic

FY 2001 Funding Year:
New Works Laboratory
Comparative Ethnic Studies
Initiative in Population Research

Appendix: Tables (Excel file)

Table A: Selective Investment Faculty Hires, by unit
Table B: Selective Investment Expenditures (2003, Annual Rate only)
Table C: Graduate Student Indicators for Selective Investment Units
Table D: Academic Enrichment Projects and Award Amounts
Table E: Comparison of Publications and Citations Data for Selective Investment Units and All OSU, 1997-99 and 2000-02 averages
Table F (and Chart 1): OSU National Ranking among Universities for NSF Awards to Division of Mathematical Sciences, 1998-2003

Introduction

The Selective Investment and Academic Enrichment funding programs served to help encourage, identify, and strengthen areas of excellence within the university. While the effects of these programs will continue building for years to come, there are many examples of ways in which the university has already benefited.

To help assess some of the impacts of these funding initiatives on the University, information was gathered about the Selective Investment units and Academic Enrichment projects. To help gauge the scholarly impact of the units funded by Selective Investment, data on publications and citations were analyzed. Also, to help evaluate the degree to which the Selective Investment units are attracting and serving graduate students with better qualifications and preparation levels, data on graduate student enrollments and GRE scores are reported here.

Next, information was gathered on the activities in Selective Investment units since funding was initiated, with special attention paid to accomplishments of faculty hired as part of Selective Investment planning, impacts on students in the units, and research and scholarship outcomes.

To assess the impacts of projects that received Academic Enrichment funding, information was gathered about those projects that were focused on the establishment or substantial early funding of new programs or centers. Sources of information on these projects included reports submitted to the Office of Academic Affairs, information published on project websites and other published reports, and communication with those involved directly with projects. Notable accomplishments are included in this report, focusing on those efforts that may have inter/multi/transdisciplinary effects, may impact students particularly, and scholarly awards and research achievements.

The Appendix includes tables of additional information, including faculty hired as part of Selective Investment, Selective Investment unit expenditures in annual rate, and Academic Enrichment project award amounts.

Background

Selective Investment

The Selective Investment initiative was begun in 1997 to identify some of our strongest departments and programs and to give them the resources they need to move to the very top of their fields. The program represents a shared financial commitment. Up to one million dollars in continuing funding is dedicated to implementing the plan of each recipient, with half provided from central funds and matching funds from the college and department.

From 1998-2001, a total of thirteen units were chosen to receive Selective Investment funding. All were selected based on their importance to our academic mission; their existing high level of excellence; their ability to promote inter-program collaborations and interdisciplinary activities; and their contribution to university outreach goals with business, industry, and the community.

Units chosen for Selective Investment awards were:

Electrical Engineering
Materials Science Engineering
Physics
Psychology

Chemistry
History
Neuroscience
Political Science

Cardiovascular Bioengineering
Economics
English
Law
Mathematics

Criteria for evaluation of Selective Investment Proposals included the following:

Promotes achievement of academic excellence in the university.
Builds on areas of substantial existing strength and advances the institution's goal of becoming a preeminent research university.
Has potential to promote inter-program collaborations and interdisciplinary activities.
Contains evidence that the unit has operated effectively in the past and has a realistic strategic plan, an investment by the sponsoring unit, and an appropriate set of benchmarks for monitoring progress and evaluating achievement.
Contributes to the university goals of outreach efforts with business, industry, and the community. In making its decisions, the committee also took into account the prospects for the program both with and without SI funding and the program's diversity.

(Source: Office of Academic Affairs)

Academic Enrichment

The Academic Enrichment Program is a centrally-funded initiative that began funding proposals in 1996. The program selected outstanding proposals from across the university each year based on their merit, interdisciplinary nature, promise of future benefit to the university, and potential to enhance Ohio State's reputation, competitiveness, and future research funding. In the seven years that the Academic Enrichment Program operated, it provided $8.7 million in matching continuing central funds and over $5.8 million in cash to specific initiatives, representing the cash equivalent of almost $175 million in central investment that is matched by college and department funds. These funds helped individual Ohio State departments and centers to hire approximately 85 faculty, and researchers to rise to national and international prominence.

The evaluation criteria for Academic Enrichment proposals included the following:

It is central to the academic mission of the university and to the achievement of academic excellence.
It builds on areas of existing strength and holds the promise of substantial future benefit to the university.
It possesses the potential for cross-unit synergy.
It includes a realistic strategic plan that includes investment by the sponsoring unit with an appropriate set of benchmarks according to which progress can be monitored and achievement evaluated.
It has potential interaction with university priorities such as initiatives in the Molecular Life Science, Environmental Science and Engineering, and Public Policy, and the enhancement of the student experience

(Source: Office of Academic Affairs)

Selective Investment: Impact of Selective Investment funds

Graduate Student Indicators

The Selective Investment initiative sought to provide the resources necessary for departments demonstrating particular excellence to move toward becoming truly outstanding. Such efforts are certain to impact students in a positive way over the long term. Departments regarded as outstanding are likely to be able to draw greater numbers of students to apply and enroll, and these students are likely to have better qualifications and higher levels of preparedness for study than students enrolled by departments that are less highly regarded.

Students are also likely to benefit from pursuing a degree in a department that is striving to be outstanding. Top-level faculty hired into these departments may bring with them their research programs as well as the ability to obtain new funding, providing additional opportunities for student exposure to and involvement in academic research projects. This is particularly true for graduate students, who may choose to pursue their advanced degrees at The Ohio State University specifically in order to work with faculty considered to be at the top of their field. Research projects conducted by these faculty also may help provide funding for graduate students as research assistants, as well as opportunities to collaborate in the presentation and publications of research results. Doctoral students seeking faculty positions themselves in particular may benefit from the increased reputation of the department and the faculty with whom they worked.

Applications and Enrollment Yield

Graduate student data on applications, admissions, and enrollments in the departments that received Selective Investment funding were collected for Autumn 1998 (the year funding began being awarded) and Autumn 2003 (the most recent available). (See Table C in the Appendix.) It should be noted that while indicators of graduate student quality are likely to increase as each department's national stature rises, such a shift takes time to develop. There is a natural lag between the increase in a department's reputation and widespread knowledge of that improvement, including the delay in the publication of new rankings.

Data were analyzed for domestic applicants and students only in order to eliminate the possible influence of more-restrictive student visa policies (one exception was the Mathematics department data, for which domestic-only numbers were not available for one of the comparison years). Of the eleven Selective Investment departments for which graduate student data were available, six had higher numbers of graduate applicants in 2003 than they did in 1998. The average increase in applicants across the eleven departments was 12.6%. The overall increase in graduate applicants for these departments is positive in that it suggests a strengthening of Ohio State's reputation, and provides a larger pool from which units may select students for admission.

Graduate student yield, or the percentage of admitted students who enrolled in graduate study, decreased in eight of the eleven departments when Autumn 1998 and Autumn 2003 are compared. The average change in yield across the eleven departments was 6.3% (Source: Data from University Technology Services; Analysis by IRP). There are many possible factors that may help explain this decrease, including the expected delay in noticeable improvement in graduate student indicators mentioned previously. In addition, as departments recruit higher-quality graduate students, they begin competing with a higher-ranked and better-funded tier of universities for those students, which may result in a lower yield but the enrollment of better-prepared graduate students than in previous years.

GRE and LSAT Scores

Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores of enrolled students were also evaluated for the Autumn 1998/Autumn 2003 comparison for the eleven Selective Investment departments for which the data were available. Overall GRE scores (all three sections combined) improved for nine of the eleven departments. The overall average change, weighted to represent accurately the numbers of scores reported by each department, was an increase of 100 points. Each section of the GRE exam (verbal, quantitative, and analytical) also showed improvement in the average weighted score (Source: Data from University Technology Services; Analysis by IRP).

Among students in the College of Law, the median LSAT score for enrolled students improved from 156 in Autumn 1998 to 160 in Autumn 2004, and the LSAT 25th and 75th percentiles improved from 152 and 160 in 1998 to 156 and 162 in 2004 (Source: College of Law Selective Investment Report 2004). Also among Law students, first-time pass rates for the Ohio Bar exam improved from 84% in 1999 to 92% in 2003 (Source: OBOR Performance Report 2003).

Impact of Selective Investment units: Research Indicators

Publications and citations

Faculty productivity, as measured by number and market share of journal articles published by faculty as well as citations of faculty publications, is commonly used as an indicator of improvement in the quality of university faculty and departments. While using the database of publications and citations provided by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) has some limitations for evaluating productivity at the department level , it remains a useful gauge of the quantity and quality of scholarship in a given field.

Nine Selective Investment units that could be correlated to fields in the ISI database were analyzed for the average number of papers published, percentage of market share in the fields, and percentage of market share of citations. Results are provided in two three-year averages: 1997-1999 and 2000-2002. The results show that the average number of papers published each year from 2000-2002 increased by 8.3, or 13.1%, over the average from 1997-1999. There was also a small increase in the average market share of publications, with a gain of .01% from 1997-1999 to 2000-2002, despite a competitive publishing environment. Average market share of citations increased 0.1%, suggesting improvement in the relative importance of faculty publications to their respective fields (Source: ISI University Science Indicators, analysis performed by IRP).

The ISI database of articles and citations is organized by the discipline with which each journal is most closely associated, rather than by the department in which the author resides. For example, if a faculty member were to publish an article in a journal that is categorized as belonging to a different field, that work would not be counted in the faculty member's field. Because of this limitation, department-level publications and citations data should be interpreted with caution.

Fields included were: Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Economics, Psychology, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science Engineering, History, and Law.

Average percent of papers in field for 9 selective investment

Comparisons between SI units and OSU overall

The same publications and citations data were collected for the university as a whole. (See Appendix Table E.) The comparisons between the Selective Investment units and all of OSU show that while the university is improving overall all these measures, the Selective Investment units are demonstrating greater improvements. The average number of publications for all OSU improved by 4.7% from 1997-99 to 2000-02, while the average for Selective Investment departments improved by 13.1%, making the change for the Selective Investment units equal to 2.75 times that of the university as a whole.

The average percentage of publications (in appropriate fields, for Selective Investment units, and in all fields, for OSU) showed a similar difference between the Selective Investment units and the full university. The improvement for all OSU between 1997-99 and 2000-02 in percentage of all publications was .004%, while the Selective Investment departments improved by .012% in that time period. On this measure, the Selective Investment units demonstrated improvement that was three times the improvement of the overall university.

A comparison of the change in average percentage of citations of faculty publications received per year between 1997-99 and 2000-02 also shows that while OSU as a whole showed improvement, the Selective Investment units had a greater rate of improvement than the overall university. The overall university had .078% more of the market share of citations in 2000-02 than in 1997-99, while the improvement for the Selective Investment units was .100%. In other words, the Selective Investment units' improvement was 1.28 times the improvement shown by the full university.

Selective Investment Units: Notable Accomplishments

Selective Investment units report annually on their progress in reaching the goals set forth in their proposals. The following information comes primarily from the 2003 and 2004 Selective Investment Assessment reports.

Units funded in 1998

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Eleven faculty elected IEEE fellows from 1998-2004.
Four faculty received NSF CAREER awards from 2002-2004, including 3 SI hires (Coifman, Schniter, and El Gamal).

Revised undergraduate electrical engineering program and created a new computer engineering program. Both programs passed the ABET review in 1999 and received full accreditation.

Research expenditures grew 80% from 1997-2002, were at an all-time high in 2002-2003 ($16.9M) and ranked 4th among public institutions.
In 2001, department established the first federally-funded research center in the last 15 years with the Air Force-funded Collaborative Center of Control Science.
In Spring 2004, Dr. John Volakis (hired in 2003) received the Multiple University Research Initiatives (MURI) Award ($1M per year for five years) for the ElectroScience Laboratory.

Materials Science and Engineering

James Williams and Winston Ho are members of the National Academy of Engineering.

Prof. Robert Wagoner received the prestigious Fellow Award of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society in 2003.
Dept. has seven Fellows of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) among current and emeritus faculty.
Sponsored research funding:

FY98: $7,146,350
FY99: $6,027,049
FY00: $5,639,824
FY01: $10,082,300
FY02: $8,837,669
FY03: $11,111,306
FY04: $10,415,959

Physics

Prof. Arkady Tseytlin (SI hire) is one of the most highly cited researchers in his field.
Prof. Samir Mathur (SI hire) won a 2003 OSU Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award.
Number of faculty in dept. has grown from 49 in 1998 to 59 in 2004.

Students:
Major national awards received by Physics undergraduates:

2000: 2 NSF, 1 DOE, 1 Goldwater
2001: 2 NSF, 1 Goldwater
2002: 1 NSF, 1 Goldwater
2003: 1 Goldwater
2004: 1 NSF, 1 Goldwater

Research:
Extramural funding is increasing:

FY00: $7.4M
FY01: $7.5M
FY02: $8.1M
FY03: $9.9M
FY04: $9.9M

Psychology

Faculty hires: 6

Dept. is better able to recruit top students in behavioral neuroscience and cognitive psychology.
Many undergraduate students involved in research with SI hires.
SI hires have proposed and taught new major requirement and honors courses.

Major increases seen in grant awards:

FY00: $2,907,569
FY04: $8,131,279

Increases in citations of faculty publications:

1998: 2,744
2002: 3,311

In the 2003-2004 academic year, Prof. Marilynn Brewer was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Prof. Sally Boysen was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Units funded in 1999:

Chemistry

Faculty hires: 2 (One additional has left OSU)

Department one of seven Chemistry depts. selected for participation in Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate program.
Both SI hires have taken several undergraduate students into their research groups.
Prof. Chisholm (SI hire) has been a very strong contributor to the undergraduate teaching program.

Federally-funded R&D (and associated national rank) increasing (in $K):

FY 98: 5,069
FY 99: 4,629 (46)
FY 00: 5,529 (40)
FY 01: 6,734 (28)

Prof. Hatcher had leadership role in procuring the $5.8M NSF EMSI in 2000.
Brad Moore (has departed) was NAS member. Malcolm Chisholm is a Fellow of the Royal Society and has been nominated for election to the NAS.
National ranking among universities for NSF awards to OSU Division of Chemistry improved from 25 in 1998 to 17 in 1999, and has held a ranking in the top ten in 2000-2003.

History

Faculty hires: 7

Graduate applications have risen in SI hire areas
SI hires have initiated popular new courses.

Publications and conference presentations of SI hires have increased the department's scholarly reputation.
SI hires received two Guggenheim awards in 2002.
In the 2003-2004 academic year, Prof. Carole K. Fink and Prof. Christopher Phelps (Mansfield campus) were named Fulbright Scholars.
Prof. Robert Davis was awarded a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 2003-2004.

Neuroscience

Four additional faculty members being recruited for FY 2004 (3 to be supported in part by SI funds).

Department has received grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and private foundations.

Department invited to apply to participate in Carnegie Institute on the Doctorate program.

Political Science

In U.S. News & World Report, the department ranked 15th in 2001, up from 18th in 1998. The department was also highly-ranked in three of the four major fields in the discipline: 7th in American Politics, 13th in international politics, and 14th in comparative politics.

Christa van Wijnbergen (SI hire) won a Fellowship for 2003-4 at the Gunzberg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.
17 faculty involved in interdisciplinary teaching; 19 involved in research conducted at interdisciplinary research centers on campus; 8 involved in collaborative research projects with faculty in other depts.

Political Science majors won first- and third-place honors in the 2003 Denman Undergraduate Research Forum, out of over 240 participants.
From 1998-99 through 2002-03, the department ranked 4th among all OSU departments in the number of prospective students winning Graduate School fellowships (133 total), and tied for 1st in the number winning Presidential Fellowships (15 total).

Department ranked 4th in the world in a global evaluation of political science departments (based primarily on publications) published in January 2004 by Simon Hix of the London School of Economics.
Department developed the Colloquium on Positive Political Economy, a speaker series that brings in faculty presenting cutting-edge research.
In 2004, book publications in top presses by department faculty included 2 authored books, 2 co-authored books, and 2 co-edited books.

Units funded in 2000:

Cardiovascular Bioengineering

Faculty hires: 4 (Includes one effective July 2006)

The program has greatly supported the growth in the number of students and fellows in the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute (DHLRI) working in the area of cardiovascular bioengineering, with over 20 currently working in the DHLRI and BME Center.

The Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute (DHLRI) achieved a top-ten national ranking for research grant funding in FY2004, with over $60M in total annual grant awards.
Faculty recruited either directly or indirectly through programmatic initiatives of the SI have generated over $30M in research grant awards to OSU in the last 2-3 years.
The program has directly resulted in the establishment of programs in nanotechnology, tissue engineering, and cardiac imaging, which together have resulted in the hiring of over 30 new faculty, scientists and engineers and have received grants from the NIH and the State of Ohio.

Economics

Domestic graduate applicants increased 67% from 1998 to 2003; average GRE score of enrolled students increased by 194 pts.

Undergraduate enrollment up 23% since AY98.
Honors enrollment up 63% since AY98.
Graduate students were awarded 27 fellowships in 2003, up from 21 in 1999.

Department recently ranked 11th in publications in eight "blue-ribbon" journals among U.S. public-university economics departments.
Significant increase in external grants generated from 1998-2002:

1998: $41,712
1999: $214,064
2000: $373,129
2001: $563,348
2002: $1,214,192

English

Andrew Hudgins (SI hire) received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004.

Department selected as one of seven English depts. nationwide to participate in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate program.
Approximately a 19% increase in graduate applications in FY04 over FY03. For FY05, there was a 50% increase in MA applications and a 3% increase in Ph.D. applications over FY04.

Andrew Hudgins and Erin McGraw (SI hires) are part of a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Defense called "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience," which selected writers to teach American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan how to write their narratives.
Richard Dutton (SI hire) has published 7 monographs, 6 scholarly editions of Renaissance plays and essays, many journal articles, and is the general editor of several literary series.

Law

SI hires started two new scholarly journals: the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law and the L/S: A Journal of Information Society Law and Policy for the Information Society (the latter jointly with Carnegie Mellon University).

Student numerical credentials have improved:

The median undergraduate GPA of the 2003 entering class was in the top 20 among all (public and private) law schools.
The median LSAT for the fall 2004 entering class equals the 75th percentile in 2000.
The LSAT 26th percentile in the fall 2004 entering class equals the median in 2000.

Moritz graduates' bar examination passage rates (first-time test takers) increased from 86% in 2000 to 92% in 2003, while the overall passage rate in Ohio stayed roughly steady.

Citations per year to faculty publications doubled between 2000 to 2003.
The average number of faculty articles per year almost doubled (from 43 to 82) between 2000 and 2003.

Mathematics

Prof. Friedman is a member of both the NAS and the AAAS.

Department selected in 2004 to participate in Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate.
Graduate enrollments increasing (goal of 120):

2000 (Au qtr): 97
2001: 100
2002: 106
2003: 117
2004: 127 (est.)

Received 5-year, $10M NSF grant for Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI) in part connected to hiring of Prof. Friedman.
Received 5-year, $3.9M grant for NSF VIGRE program.
Data on NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences Award totals show significant increase from 1998-2002:

1998	$467,673
1999	$561,124
2000	$736, 711
2001	$1,385,690
2002	$4,643,571

National ranking among universities for NSF awards to OSU Division of Mathematical Sciences (includes Mathematics, Statistics, and regional campuses) improved from 48 in 1998 to 9 in 2003 (was #1 in 2002). See table F, chart 1 in Appendix.

Academic Enrichment: New Programs and Centers

A number of programs and centers across the University were funded under the Academic Enrichment initiative. In many cases, Academic Enrichment funding represented the first substantial commitment of resources to a promising new program. With funds to hire scholars and staff as well as to purchase much-needed equipment, many of these programs have already taken major steps toward becoming centers of excellence that advance the broader goals of the University and are a focus of recognition. The following is a list of selected new programs and centers funded through Academic Enrichment, with information on progress and notable accomplishments where available.

FY 1995 Funding Year

Microscopic and Chemical Analysis Research Center

Sponsored by: Department of Geological Sciences (College of MAPS)

Project Goals: Establish and provide sufficient support for a Microscopic and Chemical Analysis Research Center (MARC) to support research and education throughout the University.

Researchers from more than 25 departments in 10 colleges are using the MARC facilities and expertise.
In addition to researchers (students, faculty and staff) carrying out research and collaborating with MARC experts, the staff have taught regular and short courses on each of the instrument techniques in the MARC.
MARC facilities have also been used as part of courses in other departments including Chemistry and Food Science.
New ties have been established between Ohio State University and industry within Ohio through projects carried out in the MARC. Funds from these projects have helped to provide necessary financial resources to the MARC as well as enhancing Ohio industry.
MARC facilities have contributed to an estimated 70 publications by Ohio State faculty. At least 50 faculty members have research projects that require the MARC facilities, and it is estimated that over 100 graduate students have used the expertise and equipment available in the MARC.

(Source: Project report summary 2003)

Emerging Technologies Studio

Projects undertaken in the ETS have attracted grant support from sources such as the Pew Charitable Trust, Getty Trust, Annenberg Foundation, FIPSE, NEH, NEA and Ohio Arts Council.
Faculty and students from every dept in the college have worked on classes and/or research projects using equipment and personnel resources in the ETS.

(Sources: Project report summary 2003; College of the Arts FY2000 College Statement report)

Technology-Based Interdisciplinary Education in Statistics

Sponsored by: College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Project Goal: Broad program of technology-based statistical pedagogy

Computer laboratories that were upgraded with Academic Enrichment funds are used to teach all the sections Statistics 135 and 145 (roughly 3,000 students per year), among other courses.

FY 1996 Funding Year

Wireless Systems: ElectroScience Lab

The lab is a multidisciplinary research facility that collaborates with other laboratories across the university.
The ElectroScience Lab has 11 faculty, 14 research scientists, 4 active emeriti, 67 students, and annual research expenditures of $4.5M. Those involved with the lab have taught many graduate courses in electromagnetics. There are 12 IEEE fellows and 2 NAE members among the faculty and research scientists.
More than 65 graduate and undergraduate students conduct research at ESL. Since its inception in 1942, 315 doctoral and 500 Master's students have gone on from doing research in the ESL to have successful careers.

(Sources: Project report summary: ElectroScience Lab 2003 Annual Report.)

FY 1997 Funding Year

Institute for Ergonomics

College of Engineering
College of Medicine
College of Education
College of the Arts
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Project Goals: Initiate the Institute for Ergonomics to help unify the extensive and cross-disciplinary ergonomics research being conducted at the University. Also, facilitate the collection and dissemination of ergonomic information to industry, and create a hands-on learning environment for ergonomic study at the graduate and undergraduate level.

The Institute continues a long tradition of human factors research at Ohio State, with an emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach to system design. To achieve this, it draws upon the extensive experience of faculty, staff, and students from a variety of disciplines, including industrial and systems engineering, computer and information science, communication, industrial design, psychology, statistics, education, physiology, biomedical engineering, public health and medicine. This interdisciplinary approach is applied to the Institute's activities focusing on education, research and consulting.

Co-sponsored (with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) the "2003 State-of-the-Art Research (STAR) Symposium: Perspectives on Musculoskeletal Disorder Causation and Control, held on the OSU campus May 21st - May 22nd, 2003.
Three graduate students (one Ph.D. and two Masters) advised by Institute co-director William Marras successfully defended their dissertations/theses and graduated in Autumn 2003.
Interdisciplinary teams (College of Engineering and School of Public Health) won the prestigious Volvo Award for Lower Back Disorder Research 2002, the Alice Hamilton Science Award from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 2003, and the 2003 Liberty Mutual Prize for Occupational Safety & Ergonomics Research (the International Ergonomics Society's highest honor).
Institute members' work on cognitive ergonomics has won the Jerome H. Ely Award for best Human Factors paper (1999), the Airline Dispatchers Federation National Aviation Safety Award (2001), and the 2002 Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award from the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society.
During the year 2003, active grants and contracts for Institute members totaled nearly $14-million.
Students have been involved in world-class research efforts and innovative, interdisciplinary education, contributing to their placements in faculty positions at a number of the best universities in the nation, as well as research and development positions at numerous prestigious companies.
Institute members are involved in numerous consulting projects, and in 2003 provided training to over 100 individuals.

(Sources: Project summary; Institute of Ergonomics website; 2003 Institute Newsletter; "2003 Year in Review: Research" publication by Institute)

Spectroscopy Institute

Chemical Physics Program
College of Engineering
College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Project Goals: Create the Spectroscopy Institute to help Ohio State become the worldwide center for molecular spectroscopy, to build emerging strengths in ultra fast technology, and to bring together those who apply spectroscopy technology with those devoted to the underlying science.

The Institute will host the International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy (60th Meeting) on June 20-24, 2005.
Institute members include 25 faculty from five different departments.
The Institute, in cooperation with the OSU Library system, has created the Molecular Spectroscopy Archives, an on-line resource providing access to abstracts from past Symposia and supplemental spectroscopic data.
Institute Director Terry Miller contributes to graduate education by teaching "Frontiers in Spectroscopy" (Chemical Physics 880 and 880A).

(Sources: Project report summary; Spectroscopy Institute website.)

Justice for Children Practicum

College of Law
Socio-Legal Studies Center

Project Goals: Establish the Justice for Children Practicum to provide students with experience in providing legal services related to the needs of children.

Project Scope: The Justice for Children Project, established in 1994, focused faculty attention and resources on law and policy related to children's needs. The Practicum is designed to build on the Project's successes and meet rising demand from students and the profession for more skills training, as it reaches out to those in need of legal services. It will also impress upon law students the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, since child law incorporates the skills of educators, psychologists, and social workers.

In the ten semesters of operation of the Justice for Children Practicum, 116 students have successfully completed the course. Of those, 13 stayed on to do advanced fieldwork.
The Justice for Children Practicum has served over 340 clients in ten semesters of operation.

(Sources: Project report summary; Justice for Children Project website; communication with Prof. Katherine Federle, Director of the Justice for Children Project.)

Computational Linguistics Program

Department of Linguistics
Center for Cognitive Science
College of Humanities

Project Goals: Help provide the Computational Linguistics program with the opportunity to make significant contributions to the field's future, perhaps elevating itself to top ranking within the next ten years.

Faculty produced 25 journal publications from 2000-2003.
Graduate program consists of about 16 students.

(Sources: Project report summary; Computational Linguistics Program website.)

Net Tutorial

Net Tutorial is a comprehensive, interactive, online method of educating students and others how to find, evaluate, and select authoritative materials, relevant to specific information needs, from the vast resources available via the Internet.

The Net Tutorial (net.TUTOR) comprises 15 interactive tutorials with 289 different Web pages.
A variety of faculty use the learning modules as part of their courses. On average, 2008 students complete lessons on net.TUTOR as part of their coursework each year, with an average of 3.85 lessons completed per student. It is estimated that net.TUTOR provides an average of over 2,060 hours of instruction each year. (Data collected from AY98-AY02.)
Information collected from user evaluations shows that in the five-year period AY98-AY02, 71% of users of net.TUTOR were undergraduate students. Graduate students made up an additional 11% of users; faculty, 4%; and "other", 12%. 75% of users were from the OSU community. These data suggest that the net.TUTOR project has had an impact on the entire University community, but has been particularly important for undergraduate students.
25% of net.TUTOR users were from non-OSU locations, and in 2002-2003 there were over 1,400 external (non-OSU) websites with links to the net.TUTOR web page. These data suggest that the net.TUTOR project has grown to impact the broader academic community.
Evaluations completed by over 23,000 users from 1997-2002 show that over 50% of users rate the tutorials in the two highest response categories for satisfaction.
As of 2003, the Project Manager (Nancy O'Hanlon) has published five articles in scholarly journals using data generated by this project and was co-PI for a one-year research grant for a study on information literacy in underserved Ohio populations, which assessed the effectiveness of the tutorials as learning resources for diverse audiences.

(Sources: Project report summary; "Report on 1997 Academic Enrichment Award: Net Tutorial" submitted by Nancy O'Hanlon April 23, 2003.)

Music Cognition Program

School of Music
Department of Psychology
Center for Cognitive Science

The program brings together scholars from Music, Psychology, Speech and Hearing Sciences, Linguistics, and Philosophy.
Constructing a Cognitive Ethnomusicology Laboratory that will facilitate the study of music as experienced in cultural context.

(Sources: Project report summary; Music Cognition program website)

FY 1998 Funding Year

Design Studio 2000

College of the Arts
Department of Industrial, Interior, and Visual Communication Design

® Faculty member hired for this project (Maria Palazzi) made possible a $6M software gift from Alias/Wavefront. Because of this, Design and ACCAD were able to have 115 seats in the Design Studio equipped with the new MAYA and PAStudio software for student use. This was followed by a $47K gift of computing equipment from Ashlar, helping provide Industrial Design students with access to state of the art software and computing technologies. The studio also has helped attract funded projects from other large corporations, providing more resources and opportunities for students.
® In 2000, Prof. Palazzi received a grant from the Battelle Endowment for Technology and Human Affairs (BETHA) to create a summer technology mentoring program for high school girls. She also won the J.C. Penney Golden Rule Award in 1999 for a related mentoring program ("Women in Technology").
® Prof. Palazzi is the Project Coordinator of a summer design technology program for high school women and teachers ("Digital Animation: A Technology Mentoring Program for Young Women"). She also has advised nine Design MFA students and teaches several graduate courses.

(Sources: Project report summary, Design Studio 2000 web page, College of the Arts FY 2000 College Statement report.)

Ophthalmic Optics Laboratory

College of Optometry

Director James Sheedy was awarded the 2002 William Feinbloom Award from the American Academy of Optometry for "distinguished and significant contribution to clinical excellence and the direct clinical advancement of visual and optometric service."

(sources: Project report summary; Center for Ophthalmic Optics Research website)

Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing

College of Humanities
Department of English

The Center conducts outreach including literacy programs conducted at local schools, professional development workshops and seminars for Ohio P-12 teachers, and The OhioWINS Summer Institute for middle- and high school teachers (now in its third year).
The Center's "Writing Across the Curriculum" program offers numerous free services to help OSU instructors integrate writing into coursework.
The Writing Center provides one-on-one assistance with writing for any member of the university community, and offers these tutorials to about 2,500 clients each year.
The Minor in Professional Writing is administered through the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing. The minor was launched in Fall 2003, and six students completed writing internships in local organizations in Winter quarter 2004.

(Sources: Project report summary, CSTW website.)

Electronic Course Reserves

Digitized many course reserve materials for online availability, increasing ease of student access. Evaluations and comments suggest the electronic format is much preferred by both students and instructors.
The numbers of courses supported by electronic reserves, items in the reserves, and accesses of the reserves have increased significantly in each year since inception. In 1998, there were 21 courses with items in electronic reserves, 219 total electronic reserve items, and 2,321 accesses of those items, while in 2003, those numbers were 483, 4,678, and 194,345, respectively (see "E-Reserve Statistics" table below).

(Sources: Project report summary; Libraries Annual Report 1999; Usage data provided by Jana Murphy, University Libraries)

FY 1999 Funding Year

Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities

Supports two to three interdisciplinary faculty working groups annually. These groups conduct at least three public presentations each year and work toward embodying their work in a conference, publications, or other appropriate form. In 2003-04, these groups focused on Endangered and Minority Languages and Cultures, Religion and Violence, and Digital Media and the Core Intellectual Questions of the Liberal Arts.
Sponsors the "Horizons" series, meant to introduce new senior colleagues to the university community by inviting them to speak on their current work. Brian McHale from English and Fritz Graf from Greek and Latin have lectured in this series.
Regularly co-sponsors lectures by visiting scholars addressing topics related to Institute themes.
Sponsors one-credit undergraduate interdisciplinary seminars, an interdisciplinary discussion series, and provides space for reading and study groups.
The Institute's Associate Director provides course support for the College of Humanities undergraduate resident Scholars Program.

(Sources: Project report summary; Institute website)

Mathematics and Statistics Learning Center

College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Department of Mathematics

Provides free tutoring for students enrolled in 23 courses in Mathematics and six in Statistics. In the 2000-2001 academic year, the center provided approximately 75,000 contact hours of tutoring.
Implemented the "Mathways" program, which helps students in Math 104 and 148 learn in study teams and discovery-through-inquiry activities. Pilot studies have shown the program has positive effects on grades, course retention, and motivation.
Maintains a library of books and other math resources for faculty, staff, and student use.

(Sources: Project report summary; MSLC website; 2003 Success Challenge report.)

Collaborative Midwifery Graduate Program

College of Nursing
Department of Community, Parent-Child, and Psychiatric Nursing

Program graduated first class in 1998 and has 34 graduates as of August 2004, all of whom passed the national certification exam for nurse-midwives.
Provides a service to Ohio as one of only three graduate nursing-midwifery programs in the state. Students from many regions of Ohio, including underserved areas, make use of the computer-mediated curriculum developed by the program and the program's relationships with preceptors throughout the state.
Students receive clinical experience with diverse populations in a variety of settings including community-based primary care agencies, The Ohio State University Medical Center's teaching hospitals and Columbus Children's Hospital.
Program Director Prof. Joyce Roberts has numerous scholarly publications and served as the president of The American College of Nurse-Midwives from 1995-2001.

(Sources: Project report summary; Graduate Nurse-Midwifery Program website; communication with Joyce Roberts, Director of Nurse-Midwifery Program; American College of Nurse-Midwives website.).

FY 2000 Funding Year

Ethnomusicology

College of the Arts
School of Music

Notable Accomplishments:

® Offered a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Cognitive Ethnomusicology in 2002-2003.

® Program has four faculty and builds interdisciplinary relationships with various departments and scholars.

® Constructing research facilities including Cognitive Ethnomusicology Lab.

(Sources: Project report summary; Ethnomusicology website.)

Research, Training and Service Through a Legislation Clinic

College of Law
Center for Law, Policy & Social Science

Interacts in an interdisciplinary way with the Dept. of Political Science and the Glenn Institute.
Sponsors one-day conferences devoted to public policy issues of relevance at the state legislative level, bringing together legislators, academics, and others interested in the legislative process. The most recent was offered in April 2004 on "Medicaid, Medicines, and Malpractice: Issues in State Health Care."
In its first two years of operation, 36 students completed the Legislation Clinic, receiving experience in a variety of settings in the Ohio Statehouse.
Provides a valuable public-policy service to the Ohio legislative community.

(Sources: Project report summary; Legislation Clinic website.)

FY 2001 Funding Year

New Works Laboratory

Department of Theatre
College of the Arts

Wexner Center for the Arts
Department of Dance
ACCAD
Thurber House

Since the New Works Lab opened in 2001, there have been 18 performance events, each seating a maximum of 50 attendees. The events have included undergraduate Honors project performances (3), staged readings of new works, master classes held by guest artists, and performances of historical readings.
The space is also used for holding classes and is used by students involved in projects such as filming of videos.

(Sources: Project report summary; Theatre department website; communications with Mark Shanda, Professor and Assoc. Chair of the Dept. of Theatre.)

Comparative Ethnic Studies

College of Humanities

Division of Comparative Studies
Department of English
Department of Women's Studies
Mershon Center

An undergraduate concentration in Comparative Ethnic and American Studies has been established, as well as programs of study within the M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Comparative Studies.
Faculty include four scholars in Comparative Studies as well others from five other departments.
Program is by nature interdisciplinary and engages many different segments of the university community.

University Initiative in Population Research

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Economics
Department of Geography
Department of Sociology

Has gained broad faculty interest and involvement across many academic departments, centers and colleges, with 50 faculty associates from ten departments.
Has held approximately 13 research seminars each year for the last three academic years.

(Sources: Project report summary, Initiative in Population Research website.)

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