Rev 1.1: October 6, 2010
Materials linked from the November 4, 2010 Graduate Council Agenda.
Oregon State University – Accreditation 2011
Evaluation of Oregon State University Core Themes
OSU has three core themes: undergraduate education, graduate education and research, and
outreach and engagement. Clearly, these are strongly related to our mission. Objectives,
Outcomes and Indicators for the core themes are provided below. The Graduate Council is
charged with evaluating Core Theme 2 as described below.
Core Theme #2: Graduate Education and Research
Description:
Oregon State University is a Carnegie Doctoral/Research-Extensive University with
Very High Research Activity. It is one of only two land, sea, space and sun grant
universities in the United States. As such Graduate Education and Research are
essential components of Oregon State.
Instructions for Evaluators of OSU Core Themes
Based on your review of the Syntheses of the Indicators for each objective, please evaluate
OSU’s achievement of the objectives according to the following:
1. Exceeds Expectations
2. Meets Expectations
3. Does Not Meet Expectations
The Steering Committee recommends that you review and discuss each objective with your
team and then arrive at a consensus. You should then complete the form below for each
objective. We do not expect that the Rationale for Rating will be more than 300 words.
Following the evaluation of each objective, please provide an evaluation of the Evaluation Process,
including a short rationale.
Finally, please recommend one area to target for improvement over the next 12 months.
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Objective #2.1:
Provide high quality and rigorous graduate education and professional
programs
Institutional Indicators:
 GRE scores of entering graduate or professional students
 Geographic origin of graduate applicants and admitted students
 Percent of total student enrollment that are graduate or professional
students and percent that are doctoral candidates
 Number of graduate programs that are ranked in the top one third of
programs within their discipline within the country
 Fraction of entering students that successfully complete their programs
and attain passing results on national licensing examinations
 Class median scores on national examinations relative to national
medians
Rationale for Indicators:
The institutional indicators cited above, while large in number, measure different
aspects of our quest for excellence. Our students must be highly qualified and
represent a broad cross section of society. To be successful, our graduate programs
must have a certain “critical mass” amongst our students. Our success is measured in
part by what our peers think of us and national rankings, while widely criticized, give
us a sense of who amongst us are at the top of their professions. To assume their role
in society upon graduation, our professional students must pass national licensing
examinations and their performance on these exams is a valid measure of how good a
job we are doing in training them.
Objective 2.1 Rating:
Data available from Indicators:
Rationale for Rating:
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Objective #2.2:
Faculty and students engage in a broad range of scholarly, artistic and
research-related activities
Institutional Indicators:

Number of competitive grants awarded

Number of public shows, exhibits, productions, and performances

Books, peer-reviewed journal publications and highly cited publications

National awards and recognition of our faculty
Rationale for Indicators:
This scholarly activity is measured in diverse ways such as research funding,
publications, awards and other evidence of scholarly activity.
Objective 2.2 Rating:
Data available from Indicators:
Rationale for Rating:
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Objective #2.3:
OSU fosters a creative, collaborative and safe intellectual culture within the
University and beyond
Institutional Indicators:
 Number of students and faculty engaged in interdisciplinary studies
 Number of undergraduate and graduate degrees in interdisciplinary
areas.
 Number of multi-institutional grants/contracts in which our faculty
participate
 Number of lost time accidents each year and their severity
 Number of people who participated in organized environmental health
and safety training each year.
Rationale for Indicators:
In modern research, collaboration across disciplinary boundaries is a hallmark of
quality. We measure our interdisciplinary activity with a variety of metrics. Without a
safe environment, nothing else matters. Accordingly the usual metrics of lost time
accidents and training to prevent them are of paramount importance.
Objective 2.3 Rating:
Data available from Indicators:
Rationale for Rating:
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Objective #2.4:
Demonstrate measureable economic impacts within the State of Oregon
and beyond.
Institutional Indicators:
 Fraction of graduates that are employed in their chosen field within 2
years of graduation
 Percent of the sponsored research funded by industry
 Licensing revenue generated
 Research spin-off developments
Rationale for Indicators:
There are a diverse variety of metrics (institutional indicators) of the economic impact
of our research reflecting the diverse impact of that research. The education of
students to be leaders in our state, our region and our nation is a great importance.
Formal signs of commercially relevant activity (patents, licensing, inventions, industry
partnerships) all measure different aspects of the economic impact of our work.
Objective 2.4 Rating:
Data available from Indicators:
Rationale for Rating:
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Core Theme 2 - Process Rating:
Rationale for Rating:
One Area to Target for Improvement:
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Data Set for Evaluation
In addition to the detailed data sets for evaluation of each of the institutional indicators,
there is a general data set for your use. This is the recent compilation of the results of the
National Research Council (NRC) survey of quality of graduate education. You’ve been
provided the spreadsheet that gives the data for each of 40 OSU graduate programs as well as the
data for our 10 peer institutions. (Arizona State, Auburn, Clemson, Colorado State, Iowa State,
Kansas State, North Carolina State, Oregon, Oregon State, Purdue, Washington State. Those
highlighted in red are OUS approved peers (for RAM budgeting purposes) while Purdue is also
an OSU aspirational peer for Strategic Planning purposes.)
We will refer to data from the spreadsheet in addressing the evaluation of the
institutional indicators. In using the NRC data, we suggest the following technique for
comparing the OSU values of the various quality metrics with that of our peer institutions. For
each graduate program rank order the ten peer institutions and OSU. Compute the mean and
standard deviation of the mean of the data. Is OSU more than two standard deviations from the
mean of the data set. If so, assign a grade for this program of either “exceeds expectations” or
“does not meet expectations”. Otherwise assign a grade of “meets expectations”. Tabulate the
number of programs in each category (“exceeds, meets, does not meet”). Reach a consensus
evaluation for the indicator involved.
To illustrate this idea, we use the data of Chemistry programs for the institutional
indicator of GRE scores of entering students. Table I shows the data for this institutional
indicator.
Institution
Average GRE Score
764
Iowa State
757
Auburn
720
Arizona State
717
Oregon State
717
Kansas State
717
Purdue
707
Oregon
684
Washington State
677
Clemsen
676
North Carolina State
670
Colorado State
The mean GRE score is 710 with a standard deviation of the mean of 10. OSU is
assigned a grade of “meets expectations”.
To make your chore easier, this computation has been done for each of the NRC metrics
used in the evaluation for each OSU graduate program on a separate spreadsheet.
Evaluation of Institutional Indicators

GRE scores of entering graduate or professional students
OSU’s mean GRE scores (self-reported) for 2009 were Verbal 510, Quantitative 650, and
Analytical 4.2 A comparison of the detailed GRE scores reported in the NRC survey of
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graduate programs with our peer institutions showed for the 40 programs ranked in the NRC
survey, 8 exceeded expectations, 23 met expectations, 5 did not meet expectations and 4
programs were unique to OSU.

Geographic origin of graduate applicants and admitted students
In 2010, we had 5414 applicants for admission as non-degree graduate students, masters
candidates, doctoral candidates and professional degree candidates. Of these, 18% were from
Oregon, 44% were from other states in the US, and 38% were international students. In this
same year, we admitted 1683 students of which 39% were from Oregon, 49% were from other
states and 12% were international.

Percent of total student enrollment that are graduate or professional students and
percent that are doctoral candidates
In Fall 2009, 15.2% of all OSU students were graduate students and 2.6% of all students were
professional students. Of the graduate students, 34.6% were doctoral candidates. According to
the 2009 Graduate Enrollment Task Force report, these percentages are low with our peer
institutions showing about 20% graduate students of which about 50% are doctoral candidates.
President Ray has announced an institutional goal of raising the graduate student enrollment to
25% of all students by 2025 and the fraction doctoral students to 50%.

Number of graduate programs that are ranked in the top one third of programs within
their discipline within the country
The rankings of graduate programs are somewhat controversial. The recent NRC survey of
graduate programs declined to give numerical rankings of the graduate programs, giving 5% and
95% confidence limits on the rankings. In the 2010 US News and World Report ranking of
graduate programs, 9 of our 80 graduate programs are ranked in the top third category. We are
ranked as a Tier 3 National Public University.

Fraction of entering students that successfully complete their programs and attain
passing results on national licensing examinations
The recent NRC survey of graduate programs has two metrics that relate to this institutional
indicator. They are the average completion percentage and the median time to degree. For the
average completion time metric 7 programs exceeded expectations, 20 met expectations, 9 did
not meet expectations and 4 programs were unique to OSU. For the median time to degree
metric, 4 programs exceeded expectations, 23 met expectations, 9 programs did not meet
expectations, and 4 programs were unique to OSU.
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The “pass rates” on national licensing examinations were reported by the Colleges of
Agricultural Sciences, Education, Engineering, Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine. These “pass
rates” were generally above 95%.

Class median scores on national examinations relative to national medians
The College of Engineering reports a 94% pass rate compared to a national pass rate of 77% on
licensing examinations. The College of Pharmacy reports that its graduates score in the top
15% of students taking licensing exams. The College of Veterinary Medicine reports 98% of its
graduates pass licensing exams while the national average pass rate is 96%. The College of
Business reports extensive details of the results of CPA examinations. Oregon State University
graduates placed third on the exam in the State of Oregon in 2008, 2007 and 2006 and second in
2003 and 2001.
2008 CPA Exam Results
FAR
AUD
REG
Oregon State University
National
BEC
46%
52%
54%
54%
49%
49%
49%
48%
All
None
Some
N
37%
26%
37%
120
39%
33%
28%
85,362
FAR = Financial Accounting and
Reporting
AUD = Auditing and Attestation
REG = Regulation
BEC = Business Environment and
Concepts
2008
The State of Oregon had passing percentages for first time candidates on all four subjects
higher than the national average
The State of Oregon ranked fifth highest of all states on
BEC
The State of Oregon ranked fifth highest of all states on
AUD

Number of competitive grants awarded
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The OSU Research Office reported 12532 competitive grants awarded in the past 5 years. The
NRC survey of graduate programs reported data on a related metric, the fraction of faculty with
research grants. For this metric, the fraction of faculty with research grants, compared to our
peers, there were 7 programs that exceeded expectations, 23 that met expectations, 6 that did not
meet expectations and 4 programs that were unique to OSU.

Number of public shows, exhibits, productions, and performances
The College of Liberal Arts reports, for the past five years, that there were 214 performances
with 42 productions reaching a total audience of 30,658 people in theater, 846 performances in
music and 69 shows and exhibitions in art.

Books, peer-reviewed journal publications and highly cited publications
The NRC survey has two metrics that are relevant to this institutional indicator. They are the
number of publications per faculty member and the number of citations per publications. For the
first metric, 6 programs exceeded expectations, 20 programs met expectations, 10 programs did
not meet expectations and 4 programs that were unique to OSU. For the second metric, citations
per publication, 7 programs exceeded expectations, 23 programs met expectations, 5 programs
did not meet expectations, one area did not have data for this metric and 4 programs that were
unique to OSU.

National awards and recognition of our faculty
To be completed later with examples.

Number of students and faculty engaged in interdisciplinary studies
In 2010 there were 231 graduate students enrolled in interdisciplinary studies programs. The
NRC survey records the number of interdisciplinary faculty involved in graduate programs. For
OSU compared to our peer institutions, 12 programs exceeded expectations, 23 programs met
expectations, 1 program did not meet expectations and 4 programs that were unique to OSU.

Number of undergraduate and graduate degrees in interdisciplinary areas.
In 2010 there were 66 graduate degrees awarded in these programs.

Number of multi-institutional grants/contracts in which our faculty participate
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The Research Office reports 2169 multi-institutional grants and contracts in the last 5 years.

Number of lost time accidents each year and their severity
The Office of Environmental Health and Safety reports 1123 lost time accidents during the past
six years. For the only recent year in which there is complete data the cost of these accidents
was $144,144.

Number of people who participated in organized environmental health and
safety training each year.
For the 2009-2010 fiscal year, 4762 people received safety training.
UPON FURTHER REFLECTION, WE BELIEVE THAT THE TWO METRICS
CONCERNING SAFETY OUGHT TO BE DROPPED FROM THE LIST OF
INSTITUTIONAL INDICATORS AS IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO ASSESS HOW WELL WE
ARE DOING IN THESE AREAS. WE PROPOSE SAFETY BE DISCUSSED IN THE
REPORT BUT THAT THESE ITEMS SHOULD BE DROPPED FROM THE LIST OF
INDICATORS.
 Fraction of graduates that are employed in their chosen field within 2 years of
graduation
Most colleges (Forestry, HHS, COAS, COS and Vet Med) report > 90% of their graduates are
employed in their chosen field within 2 years of graduation.

Percent of the sponsored research funded by industry
The OSU Research Office reports 1.6% of sponsored research is funded by industry. Based
upon data from our peer institutions, OSU does not meet expectations.

Licensing revenue generated
The OSU Research Office reports 12.6 M$ of licensing revenue over the past five years. OSU
meets expectations relative to our peer institutions,

Research spin-off developments
The OSU Research Office reports 9 spin-off developments over the past five years. This number
meets expectations relative to our peers.
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