Steps taken by SRS in fall 2007 to strengthen the confidentiality protections applied to the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) by expanding the use of data suppression methods impacted the reporting of data about underrepresented minorities. The negative response by the community to these changes inspired SRS to explore alternative data reporting strategies that would avoid or minimize data suppression while still protecting the confidentiality of respondent data.
Over the past year SRS initiated outreach efforts to learn about the data needs and uses of the SED data user community and to solicit feedback on alternative data reporting strategies. At the February 20, 2009 meeting of the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE)—a congressionally mandated committee that advises NSF on policies and programs for increasing the number of underrepresented individuals in science and engineering fields—SRS outlined its proposed strategy for reporting SED race/ethnicity/gender data by fine field of degree. The links below provide information about this data reporting strategy.
- A status report on the release of race/ethnicity/gender data by fine field of degree, including next steps to be taken (March 2009).
- Features of the proposed strategy for reporting race/ethnicity/gender data (presented at the February 20th CEOSE meeting).
- An article describing the CEOSE meeting from the February 27, 2009 issue of Science Magazine
(113K).
- CORRECTION to the February 27 Science Magazine article. See Science Magazine, March 20, 2009, News of the Week (p. 1561) (71K).
Last updated: March 6, 2009
