Frequently Asked Questions
The Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) Initiative aims to help physics programs respond to challenges with a collection of knowledge, experience, and proven good practice provided through Guide section content, Departmental Action Leadership Institutes, and ongoing workshops to train physics program leaders and external program reviewers on how to use the Guide.
Yes! The EP3 Guide offers a comprehensive outline of potential themes, actionable practices, and implementation strategies for you to adapt to your local contexts. While the Guide was primarily designed for chairs or other leaders in physics departments, we have found that the information in the Guide is applicable in broader contexts. Some potential use cases:
- If you are a chair or other leader who makes programmatic decisions for physics departments at a four-year institution in the US, the Guide will help you learn how to implement evidence-based effective practices to achieve goals that matter most for your department. For the purposes of this Guide, effective practices are actions that departments can take to address specific questions, improve programs, or clarify important strategies.
- If you review physics departments at four-year institutions in the US, the Guide will help you become more effective by providing vetted practices and resources to help physics departments achieve specific goals that support targeted feedback aligned with a program’s own goals.
- If you are a student or faculty member of a physics department in a non-leadership position, the Guide can help you identify and advocate for resources and departmental attention for important issues to strengthen your department.
- If you are a member of a non-physics department, we have found that many parts of the Guide work well in other fields. For example, we have worked with humanities departments who face similar enrollment challenges, and they found the Guide helpful to think through potential strategies and actions they can take.
- If you are outside the US, a chair at a community college, or an administrator, many aspects of the Guide will still be useful for identifying potential strategies and working with department faculty.
If you would like to chat with team members about adapting the Guide to your local context, please contact us at ep3@aps.org.
No. The EP3 team sought to create a guide to support departments in creating and building excellent programs while giving them freedom to adapt recommendations to their particular goals, environments, resources, and constraints. The Guide recommends practices for achieving specific goals, with the understanding that there are many ways to accomplish goals, and a department does not need to adopt all of these practices or goals to improve their program. Using the Guide can prevent you from reinventing departmental programs for which substantial knowledge is already available.
The Guide is designed to help departments prepare for periodic external review and fulfill the needs of national accreditors all while engaging in a process of continuous improvement of their programs.
The Guide was shaped to embody practices of specific goal setting, specific interventions, data acquisition, and reflection. This cyclic review structure allows departments to see progress without periodic bursts of activity during which an overwhelming amount of time must be spent on assessment. Further, such a process is now required by nearly all national accreditors, and shaping departmental actions along these lines can save faculty members significant time and enable departmental ownership of the activities they wish to explore and choose to assess.
Not at this time. After extensive study and discussion with members of the physics community, including a survey of physics department chairs, the APS Committee on Education has concluded that it is not appropriate at this time to institute certification or accreditation of undergraduate physics programs; this conclusion was also reached independently by AAPT. APS is considering the possibility of certifying external reviewers of departments to respond to repeated inquiries for certification for programs from the physics community.
The Guide has two unique features: (1) it comprehensively addresses challenges and opportunities faced by undergraduate physics departments and higher education and (2) it is a living document. Many reports from task forces within and outside the physics community have investigated specific issues faced by departments and institutions and are referenced and expanded upon in the Guide. For example, the SPIN-UP report, published in 2003, focused on increasing the number of physics majors during a time in which many programs were losing majors but did not say much about curriculum, professional skills development, or program assessment. The Guide draws on SPIN-UP and other reports but has a much broader scope. Additionally, the EP3 Initiative is founded on a philosophy of regular reflection and action, and the Guide itself is no exception. We regularly review and revise Guide sections to be responsive to the changing needs and experiences of physics departments in the US as well as broader contexts where Guide content is applicable and relevant.
How to cite the entire EP3 Guide:
S. B. McKagan, D. A. Craig, M. Jackson, and T. Hodapp (editors), A Guide to Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3), American Physical Society: College Park, MD (2021). https://ep3guide.org/
How to cite a section of the EP3 Guide:
EP3 Initiative, "Degree Tracks," Version 2022.1, in A Guide to Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3), edited by S. B. McKagan, D. A. Craig, M. Jackson, and T. Hodapp, American Physical Society: College Park, MD (2021). https://ep3guide.org/guide-overview/degree-tracks
If you are a contributor:
C. Contributor (contributor), et al. (EP3 Initiative), "Degree Tracks," Version 2022.1, in A Guide to Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3), edited by S. B. McKagan, D. A. Craig, M. Jackson, and T. Hodapp, American Physical Society: College Park, MD (2021). https://ep3guide.org/guide-overview/degree-tracks (For a full list of contributors and reviewers to the EP3 Guide, see https://ep3guide.org/about/contributors-and-reviewers/)
If you are a reviewer:
R. Reviewer (reviewer), et al. (EP3 Initiative), "Degree Tracks," Version 2022.1, in A Guide to Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3), edited by S. B. McKagan, D. A. Craig, M. Jackson, and T. Hodapp, American Physical Society: College Park, MD (2021). https://ep3guide.org/guide-overview/degree-tracks (For a full list of contributors and reviewers to the EP3 Guide, see https://ep3guide.org/about/contributors-and-reviewers/)
If you are member of a section synthesis committee:
S. Synthesizer (synthesis committee member), et al. (EP3 Initiative), "Degree Tracks," Version 2022.1, in A Guide to Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3), edited by S. B. McKagan, D. A. Craig, M. Jackson, and T. Hodapp, American Physical Society: College Park, MD (2021). https://ep3guide.org/guide-overview/degree-tracks (For a full list of contributors and reviewers to the EP3 Guide, see https://ep3guide.org/about/contributors-and-reviewers/)
Because EP3 Guide sections are not traditional publications and readers of your CV may not understand what a contribution entails or the degree to which it is peer reviewed, it may help to include an explanatory note in your CV such as the following:
"Guide sections are developed in a highly collaborative process involving numerous contributors, section developers, reviewers, and editors, any of whom may contribute to the final product. For each section, the EP3 team selects contributors and reviewers who are content experts and/or implementation experts in the content area of that section. Contributors, reviewers, synthesis committee members, and the editorial director all contribute significantly to the content and writing of the section. Each section undergoes several stages of external review prior to publication, involving multiple reviewers external to the EP3 Initiative, and so is in every meaningful sense a collaborative peer-reviewed publication. See https://ep3guide.org/about/contributors-and-reviewers/ for a list of contributors to EP3 Guide sections and a more detailed description of the process for developing a Guide section."
