Friday, July 23, 2021
By:
This week, I finalized the Top Educators Lists and the documentation for the process. As I was starting to work on graphs, something was brought to my attention. Our How Does Your Institution Compare data for 2018 did not include second degrees in physics although the Uberspreadsheet did. This made me realize that it would be beneficial to think about synchronizing the How Does Your Institution Compare data with the Uberspreadsheet.
Moreover, we realized that the data we obtained from NSF also did not include second degrees, an intentional choice made by the NSF Data Center – tradeoffs in software design and data infrastructure can lead to problems like this. Having switched to NSF and worked on all the projects based on that specific database, this made me quite upset. The rest of my time at APS will be spent on updating the documentation to note this issue, brainstorming about what the future holds for the decision of IPEDS vs. NSF, and evaluating what could be published on the APS website this summer. No matter what, I still learned a lot during my internship, and I am thankful to Galen Pickett from California State University - Long Beach for bringing this issue to our attention. It could have gone unnoticed, and I am glad we get to fix it!
Zeynep Tuna (she/her/hers)