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. While it is good to
participate in these, how many are there for the undergraduates? How
much funding can go to this? How many professors are willing to take
the time out? There are many but even more are willing if it helps
advance their research (with less cost to hire this undergraduate). The
funding is there for the student to do a part of an experiment with a
mini-conclusion or something built for a bigger experiment. This work
is becoming more and more common.
I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but this definition does not
seem that reasonable at most schools. Some don't have the facilities or
$$ and some have professors in major research projects with large time
investments that can't do it. That is why the undergraduate is becoming
a major source of summer employment by collaborations at the national
labs, because of the low salary compared to a (union) lab tech. The
construction is partly research and they pick up skills that are
necessary in experimental physics. Hope this makes sense.
Sam Held
-----Original Message-----
From: brian whatcott [mailto:inet@INTELLISYS.NET]
Sent: Monday, March 15, 1999 8:20 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: Definition of Undergraduate Research
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.)
The instrumentation is normally not extensive nor expensive.
The reportage is expected to show the highest level of honesty.
One hopes to see a conclusion of some kind.