Welcome to the ComPADRE committee thread.  Let me start by giving you the charge to the committee:

ComPADRE, The Nucleus, and the Scholarship Clearinghouse---SPS is part of an NSF-funded effort (NSDL, the National Science Digital Library), led by AAPT and involving APS and AAS, to continue development of ComPADRE, the physics digital library. The student component of ComPADRE is called The Nucleus (www.compadre.org/student) and it features an Undergraduate Research Clearinghouse, Chapter of the Month features, book and text reviews, discussion threads, surveys and polls, etc. The latest addition, which should be initiated very soon, is a Scholarship Clearinghouse. Committee A is charged with reviewing the content of The Nucleus, test-driving the Scholarship Clearinghouse, and suggesting new ways to bring physics students to the site and getting them to contribute and participate. 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. Those Council members that are familiar with the Nucleus are especially invited to serve on this committee, but even those who have not examined The Nucleus can bring important insights to the group and are welcome as well.

As a preliminary activity, I would like you to do the following things:

1.  Find at least one scholarship that is not on Rebecca's list (Gary or I will make sure that you have the list.)  You can find the scholarship by searching the web, or by any other means you wish to use.

2. Go through the Nucleus and make some notes on the site.  Please note the things you like, the things you don't like, and things that aren't there that you would like to see.

3. Post an item in one of the other discussion threads.

4. Think about whether you would like to "SPS Chapter web tool kit" on the site.  What would you like to see in such a tool kit.

If you have any ideas about other things to work on before the council meeting, please post them here.

Looking forward to seeing y'all.

Dave

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value -- Albert Einstein

Hello Committee B:
Please consider thinking about the charge to this committee before we gather on Th/Fr..
The charge for Committee B is to answer some questions about the efforts of SPS to recruit/retain/include/encourage the participation of underrepresented groups in the physics community. Specifially,
*Should these efforts be continued, expanded?
*Are there other things that should be added?
*What guidance would you give to setting priorities among these items?
Our committee with will prepare a document summarizing the committee's accomplishments, recommendations and decisions to date to share with the rest of the Council. We will workd on a timeline for accomplishing identified goals for the reaminder of the academic year.

Thank you for taking the time to consider these ideas and questions. Watch for more posts tomorrow.
Toni

Hello Ethics Committee and welcome to our thread! I would like to thank all of you in advance for your help over the next year! Hopefully we can get a lot accomplished.

Before the conference, I would like you to do a few things for me:
1) Please review the text of the full set of
recommendations in your agenda books or at http://www.sigmapisigma.org/ethics.htm

2) Review some of the ethics statements put out by APS for possible adoption; try http://www.aps.org/statements/02_2.cfm

3) Examine various statements on diversity...here's a lengthy one from
the American Geophysical Union recommended by Gary White:
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/education/jsc/RESOLUTION.final.pdf

4) Also, especially if you didnt get to attend the congress, check out the pictures and reports at www.sigmapisigma.org


And here is a copy of our charge:

C. Ethics recommendations from Congress---Discussions among the SPS
2004 Ethics Recommendations Committee and the SPS Executive Committee
resulted in three emerging as highest priority:
1) Recommendation #2.disseminating ethics case study materials,
2) Recommendation #4. investigate existing ethics statements for SPS
use,
3) Recommendation #7. issue a statement on the importance of diversity.

Committee C is charged with reviewing the progress wrt these three recommendations, proposing a plan to further implement these three, and identifying any other high-priority actions wrt the Recommendations that should be pushed forward. 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. Those who attended the 2004 Congress are
especially invited to serve on this Committee.

Greetings,
This is the thread for SPS Council Committee D. Undergraduate Research Project. The idea is that we start a conversation about what the committee should accomplish. The committee description and charge to the committee are appended below. But first, take a few minutes to respond to one or more of these three items:

1) Read the green-colored documents behind Tab G in your agenda book; the first is some thoughts about undergraduate research that represent the genesis of the idea of this project and the second is a statement from the Council of Undergradute Research (CUR). Do you think we should endorse the CUR statement?

2) Take this survey about undergraduate research!
http://www.neiu.edu/~lruecker/research_survey/

Do you think this survey asks the questions that are important to you?

3) What are the main reasons why undergraduate research is a good thing, speaking from your own experience as a student researcher or a faculty mentor? What can make the experience negative?


D. Undergraduate Research---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 in Physics, supporting travel awards for students to present their research at national and international meetings---and is uniquely positioned to contribute views from the student perspective. Should SPS expand its current role to study undergraduate research more systematically? Possible avenues include submitting a proposal to support (likely a joint proposal with other agencies like the Council on Undergraduate Research, CUR, and others)
1) Conference(s) on measuring the impact of undergraduate research (perhaps 30 participants, leaders in organizations and institutions that support undergraduate research experiences---SPS, CUR, NCUR, NASA, NIST, DOE, NSF, published authors on the subject, others)
2) Fellowships for scientists, and internships for students with experience relevant to this topic to study, measure impacts, write monographs (perhaps a full-time person for two years and 2 additional scientists and/or interns each summer)  
3) Site visits to document successful practices (teams of three go to three or four representative programs each year for direct study)
4) Support for undergraduate research journaling (say, 50-100 students writing weekly about the undergraduate research experience each summer)

Committee D is charged with assessing the relative merits of these four ideas, perhaps modifying them or adding others, and recommending a 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.

NSF Program Director (on assignment from the AIP and the Society of Physics Students to serve as the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program Director at the National Science Foundation)

Greetings to the volunteers to serve on the SPS Pub. Task Force!  In the short time we have before the Council Meeting, please take a few minutes to refresh your memory about SPS publications, especially the SPS Observer and Radiations.  We will discuss the goals of our publications, so that we can better assess how well we are meeting those goals.
Consider what ONE THING the publications should have more of to do a better job of attracting the interest of undergraduate students?
Review the SPS Reporter program.  There is some relevant info in your Agenda book, see near the end of Tab G, right after the green pages.
If you have questions before the Council meeting, let's try using this thread to communicate!
See you soon!
Earl

Hi all,
Welcome to this discussion group.  I'm Steve Kanim, zone 16 councillor.  Since my research area is physics education, Gary asked me to reply to this post and to start the discussion that we will be continuing at the council meeting about physics education research and SPS.  

Apparently the decision to form a committee on physics education arose as a result of a request from the AIP's education committee for AIP to develop an official statement with regard to physics education research.  (I've copied this request immediately below.)  The AIP Governing Board suggested that this be pursued through SPS Council.  (AIP Governing board's response is also copied below.)  Before you get to the meeting, could you start to think about what position (if any) SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma should take with regard to physics education research?  I have some "conversation starters" below the charge.

AIP Education Committee's recommendation:

AIP should develop an official statement in support of discipline-based educational research, such as Physics Education Research.  AIP Education Division should provide support to efforts by the APS, AAPT, and other member societies to foster and encourage discipline-based educational research.  The AIP should also intensify its current efforts to disseminate the results of this research to secondary and post-secondary educational institutions.

Response from AIP Governing Board:

The AIP Governing Board generally considers statements brought forward by one or more Member Society; however, with respect to the Education Division, such a statement might be pursued through the SPS Council which governs SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma. AIP must set reasonable limits on what it can accomplish in such a broad arena.  The AIP Education Division will continue efforts to provide support for member societies' efforts to disseminate and promote implementation of discipline-based education research.  This will be undertaken via an increasingly visible AIP presence at national meetings and with increased interactions and support of particular committees, task forces, and other groups within Member Societies. AIP through SPS will continue increasing students' awareness of this research in the coming year.

My comments:
Other member organizations have adopted statements in support of research into teaching and learning within a discipline.  (See for example http://www.aps.org/statements/99_2.cfm).  Does SPS want to adopt a similar statement?  In what other ways can (and should) SPS take a position on physics education research?  Some possibilities:
(1) Letting SPS members know about published results of PER (for example, there is a new online journal Physical Review Special Topics -- Physics Education).
(2) Informing SPS members about graduate schools where they might pursue PER
(3) Involving SPS members in meetings where there is a PER emphasis (for example, SPS has been invited to send some students to next year's Gordon conference on Physics Research and Education (Electricity and Magnetism).

So:  Is any of this appropriate to SPS or Sigma Pi Sigma?  What are your views?

Thanks,
Steve