Service Courses: The department offers physical science and introductory physics courses to over 3,000 students each year. Most of these courses also have a laboratory component. Our goal is to cover the basic concepts of physics and astronomy and teach our students to analyze and solve physical problems. We use lectures, demonstrations and laboratories to help students develop an intuitive as well as a logical understanding.

Major Program: The department offers the B.A. and B.S. degrees in the College of Arts and Sciences as well as the B.S. in Physics and Engineering Physics in the Honors Tutorial College. The goal of these degree programs is to prepare our graduates with a solid foundation in physics, astronomy and/or engineering which they can use in their life, work and/or in a variety of advanced degree programs.

Graduate Program: The department offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics. Our goals are to train professional physicists and astrophysicists who are well grounded in the fundamentals of the subject and are capable of doing original research. Our doctoral program aims to compete effectively at the national and international level in the research areas we have selected.

Service Courses: Each of our service courses has a coordinator who chairs a committee consisting of faculty who teach in the sequence. This committee assures continuity in the courses but also carefully examines the need for innovation. Input comes from students and the faculty who teach the course with additional comments coming from faculty advisors in other departments. The most sweeping change in the method of teaching these courses was the introduction of the CAPA (Computer-Assisted Personal Assignments) system. This action was in large part in response to student input on the flaws in the traditional homework system. The new system gives each student a problem set in which the basic problems are the same but for which the input values are different from those of any other student. Each student works out the answers and logs on to the computer to enter the answers. For those problems for which the answer is incorrect, the student can try again. Thus, the student can get full credit for a problem even if the first answer was wrong, assuming they find the correct answer subsequently. At the end of a week, the new problem set is distributed and scores on the problems of the previous week are entered into the electronic gradebook.

Two TIP (Technology Implementation Proposals) were funded in the department; one to purchase, set up and evaluate CYBERPROF and another to develop new interactive learning materials based on JAVA. A further effort to introduce new teaching methods has been made in the Physical Science 105 course and the Physics 200 series. Professor Elster has put the course notes for Physical Science 105 on the World-Wide-Web. This was partly because she felt that no available text completely met the requirements for the course. There were also the possibilities of including exotic graphics in the notes and the possibility of including cross links in the presentation. Class presentations from the web can utilize synchronized sound. Web access is available 24 hours a day, and the student can easily send a message to the instructor at any time of day. Preliminary results of a comparison between the class taking the course before the WEB notes and after indicates a slight narrowing of the distribution of test scores, with a smaller tail on the low side. While this is a positive sign, the comparison is based on the use of the WWW for one year. A more detailed comparison will be presented once the results for more years are available.

A similar pattern has been observed in the Physics 200 series. Professor Jung put lecture notes on the web for this course, although unlike the Physical Science 105 course, a conventional text is used as well. Professor Jung has had feedback that the students like the web availability in that the notes can be printed out in advance. This allows less focus on note-taking during lecture and more on comprehending the material. At present, the homework is handled with CAPA, but an initial examination of the possibility of switching to CYBERPROF has indicated that there would be advantages to the switch. CYBERPROF allows for more interaction between computer and student and can provide more help than a "right or wrong" answer. The initial use of the web presentation was during this academic year; students have indicated that more than half value the "web-based" notes. A more detailed study of performance and a comparison between pre-web and post-web performance will be completed during the coming year.

Comparison of pre-CAPA and post-CAPA performance in the 250 series is also underway. This comparison will be based on two years experience with CAPA. An obvious change is that the homework scores have improved. Students have also raised their rating of course effectiveness by about 0.4 (on a 5-point scale) since the introduction of CAPA. Although the change in average grade is small, it appears that the drop fraction has decreased. Thus, some marginal students are apparently staying in the course and are performing well enough combined with possible improvements in the performance of other students that the average grade has remained steady. An examination of the possibility of using CYBERPROF in the 250 series is also underway.

Major Program: Majors in the Arts and Sciences program are advised by Professors Steve Grimes, Chuck Brient or Tom Statler. Tutorial students are advised by Professors Gerry Harp (Physics) or David Ingram (Engineering Physics). All students (A&S and Tutorial) now take an introductory seminar. This course gives introductory students the chance to know at an early stage the style and approach of a scientist to a problem. Since its introduction, students have mentioned it frequently as a worthwhile course on exit interview forms.

Continuing examination of our curriculum for majors has led to a recent revision in the advanced astronomy sequence. Recent developments in Astronomy have led to significant changes in our understanding of the subject and necessitated replacement of three of our traditional courses.

We have, for some time, surveyed our graduating seniors. This form (Appendix 1) is filled out spring quarter of the final year. We have now made arrangements for a similar survey one year after graduation. Results of this survey indicate a high level of satisfaction with our program. A summary of the results averaged over two years is presented in Table 1.

Graduate Program: Most graduate students enter our program with the intent of obtaining a Ph.D., although we do also offer an M.S. degree both with and without thesis. The M.S. degree without thesis is based on taking a number of required courses and in producing a scholarly or research paper, while an M.S. degree with thesis requires a research thesis. Many of our students who graduate with an M.S. degree transfer to other universities to seek Ph.D.’s in fields that are not represented in our department, while some enter the industrial job market.

The self-study of the doctoral program in Physics at Ohio University was evaluated and examined by the Board of Regents and the State Investment in Higher Education Task Force last year. As part of this self-study, we sent questionnaires to all Ph.D. graduates of the past 10 years. We obtained very positive reports from our graduates on our training and learned that, in general, they were employed in good jobs utilizing physics. The self-study is available on the department’s homepage for anyone to examine [http://www.phys.ohiou.edu]. The review by the three external reviewers who came to campus for two days was very positive. (One of the quotes was: "Ohio University has done an exemplary job of building a strong physics program at the undergraduate and graduate level.") At the state level, our program was judged very solid, with a recommendation of continued support. In particular, the physics doctoral program was treated Type 1 by the Ohio Committee on Investment in Higher Education. Type 1 means no concern about viability and represents a high quality program. In the National Research Council ratings of doctoral programs in 1992, the physics doctoral program at Ohio University was ranked significantly higher than all other programs at Ohio University except Contemporary History.

The graduate program is controlled by the Graduate Committee which monitors the progress of students on a regular basis and is the agent for curricular change.

During the past year, 10 students received their Ph.D. degree in Physics at Ohio University. One has received a faculty position, five are in postdoctoral positions and four are working in industry. None is unemployed as of this time.