Program: Oceanography (Phd)
Degree: Doctorate
Date: Tue Sep 29, 2015 - 1:48:03 pm
1) Below are your program's student learning outcomes (SLOs). Please update as needed.
Upon completion of the Doctoral program in Oceanography, students will be able to:
- Perform all of the Master’s program SLOs
- Comprehensively synthesize, evaluate, and interpret the fundamental knowledge in their subdiscipline and how it relates to the other subdisciplines
- Independently construct scientific hypotheses and design and carry out research to evaluate them
- Critically analyze and synthesize the results of their research to derive conclusions which advance the field and are of a quality suitable for publication in the peer-reviewed literature
1) Institutional Learning Objectives (ILOs) and Program Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)
2) Your program's SLOs are published as follows. Please update as needed.







3) Please review, add, replace, or delete the existing curriculum map.
- File (03/16/2020)
4) For your program, the percentage of courses that have course SLOs explicitly stated on the syllabus, a website, or other publicly available document is as follows. Please update as needed.





5) Did your program engage in any program learning assessment activities between June 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015?


6) What best describes the program-level learning assessment activities that took place for the period June 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015? (Check all that apply.)







7) Briefly explain the assessment activities that took place in the last 18 months.
Effective September 2015, the annual required Division Symposium (presentations given by the graduate students), will not be evaluated by the audience using the same form and rubric. In past years, the presentations were evaluated by separate forms and rubrics.
Exit intervews continue to be conducted for every graduate student that graduates from our program.
8) What types of evidence did the program use as part of the assessment activities checked in question 6? (Check all that apply.)
Direct evidence of student learning (student work products)














Indirect evidence of student learning







Program evidence related to learning and assessment
(more applicable when the program focused on the use of results or assessment procedure/tools in this reporting period instead of data collection)




9) State the number of students (or persons) who submitted evidence that was evaluated. If applicable, please include the sampling technique used.
6 students graduated with PhD in Oceanography during June 2014 through September 2015.
12 students gave a formal annual presentation at the POGS Symposium in September 2015, and were evaluated under the new form and rubric.
10) Who interpreted or analyzed the evidence that was collected? (Check all that apply.)










11) How did they evaluate, analyze, or interpret the evidence? (Check all that apply.)







12) Summarize the results of the assessment activities checked in question 6. For example, report the percent of students who achieved each SLO.
All graduating students met all program SLOs, as required by the departmental Degree Requirements.
13) What best describes how the program used the results? (Check all that apply.)









14) Please briefly describe how the program used the results.
Effective August 2015, the Department changed course requirements of the Physica Oceanography students sohey are similar to the requirements of the other Divisions. This change was based on responses from the students as well as faculty from the Physical Oceanography Division.
15) Beyond the results, were there additional conclusions or discoveries? This can include insights about assessment procedures, teaching and learning, and great achievements regarding program assessment in this reporting period.
Program SLO assessment at the graduate level has been an integral part of the Department's degree program since its formation, and continues to work well. Since Fall 2013, the Department has changed their policy to only require one comprehensive exam for PhD students instead of two. This should significantly reduce the time it takes for our students to graduate from the program since that has been an ongoing concern among the graduate students and external review assessment boards.