Re: Definition of Undergraduate Research

[Samuel Held <Held@RHIP.PHYS.UTK.EDU>]

Brian,
        You are right in that you were describing things that don't
usually occur on the college campus.  I was taking undergraduate
literally to mean those in college who haven't received a BS or BA yet.
I was also trying to give a realistic view of what happened at my school
which was a small but good research institute.  From discussions with
others, this is also what happens at other schools.  In some ways it is
the traditional "slave labor" but the trick is to find the professor
that realizes you can no longer work for them if you don't pass the
classes.


Sam Held


-----Original Message-----
From: brian whatcott [mailto:inet@INTELLISYS.NET]
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 1999 7:47 AM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: Definition of Undergraduate Research


Seems to me that Sam has in mind the use of 'slave labor' (featuring
grad
and undergrad students), a tried and tested facet of mainstream
college-based research.

I was attempting to describe something much more homey.
Something that can happen at home; in high-school; at science-fairs.
Something with no sense of shame about publishing in popular science
mags.
 In brief, something that is not college-professor-centered.

Brian

At 22:47 3/15/99 -0500, you wrote:
> Brian,
>        Under your definition, I would never have had a senior thesis.
> I did some simulation studies and some detector R&D (test
> photomultiplier tubes, detector set-ups, etc.).  There was no hard
> conclusions about physics except offering different options in the
> design and operation a particle detector.  Your definition limits
> students to whole experiments to carry out. ...
> Sam Held

> Undergraduate research is....
>
> ...undertaken during a limited time period using protocols
> accessible at the appropriate learning level preferably using
> simple but effective statistical measures to refine numeric
> values associated with an explicit model relating physical
> cause and effect (which is not disqualified if it ignores
> many subtleties.)
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK