The Committee has wrestled for a number of years with TWO SPECIFIC
PROBLEMS.  At the Committee's last meeting, Graduate School staff were
asked to make inquiries of OTHER INSTITUTIONS THAT MAY ADMINISTER
SIMILAR INTERNAL AWARDS PROGRAMS. The Committee is interested in
procedures and policies that address these same problems:

Kenneth:

=I am struggling with a similar situation.  We have a review
=committee of 12 representing five faculties and which
=includes three students.  We simply do the best we can and
=do not solicit outside or expert help.  However we
=experience similar faculty complaints.  We are currently
=reviewing our procedures and considering such things as an
='envelope' system of awarding money with sub-committees
=chosen from the same faculty.  That is Arts would get 25%
=of the money and only Arts faculty would review Arts
=applicants.

 1.   In a process which does NOT constitute a "peer review,"
 how does your campus provide sufficient expertise to make
 possible a "scholarly" review/rating of applications?

 It is often the case (with just 12 committee members and
 70 applications) that there are a number of applications
 (in each competition) which none of the committee members
 feels qualified to evaluate as an "expert".

 What processes/procedures do you employ to
 address this problem?  Is "expert" opinion ever
 solicited to augment the review
 provided by committee members themselves?

 2.   Is "feedback" provided to those applicants who do NOT
 receive an award?

=No, we don't provide feedback and this has occasioned a
=great deal of complaint from unsuccessful applicants.
=As a panel of non-experts, I suspect it would be very hard
=to justify our decisions.  Committee members, already
=committing substantial time to this committee, don't want
=to have to justify their decisions to applicants and don't
=want hard feelings to persist.  All deliberations are
=confidential.  As the director of research I am permitted
=to comment on any obvious deficiencies or problems with an
=application.

=I am almost relieved to hear others have similar problems
=with internal competitions!

Geoff

   Geoff Ralling, Director                  E-mail xxxxxx@UPEI.CA
   Office of Research Development           Phone 902-566-0561
   University of Prince Edward Island       FAX   902-566-0756