The Rockefeller University Graduate Tracking Survey System. Issue 4 (13th November 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Romanick, Michelle; Ng, Kwan; Lee, George; Herbert, Matthew; Coller, Barry S.
• Is Part Of: Clinical and translational science. Volume 8:Issue 4(2015)
• Page Start: 326
• Page End: 329
• Publication Date: 2014-11-13
• Subjects: Medicine, Experimental -- Periodicals; Medical innovations -- Periodicals; 616.027
• DOI: 10.1111/cts.12238
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1752-8054

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>Abstract</title> <sec id="cts12238-sec-0010" sec-type="section"> <title>Background</title> <p>It is essential to track the careers and accomplishments of the graduates of translational research training programs to assess the impact of the programs and to improve them. The major obstacle is the lack of a convenient method to collect the information in a comprehensive and standardized manner.</p> </sec> <sec id="cts12238-sec-0020" sec-type="section"> <title>Methods</title> <p>We have developed a Web‐based electronic Graduate Tracking Survey System (GTSS) that prepopulates the graduate's information on publications, grants, patents, and clinical trials from public data sources, thus insuring a uniform data format, facilitating survey completion, and facilitating the aggregation of data at individual or multiple sites. GTSS questions are designed to assess whether trainees make important contributions that improve human health, and to track related "surrogate" career development indicators of likely future success.</p> </sec> <sec id="cts12238-sec-0030" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>The GTSS has been in use at Rockefeller University since 2011 and has been adopted by 21 other Clinical and Translational Science Award programs.</p> </sec> <sec id="cts12238-sec-0040" sec-type="section"> <title>Conclusions</title> <p>The GTSS provides an efficient and convenient mechanism to track the graduates of a wide variety of training programs. It has the potential to aggregate standardized data across institutions, thus providing benchmarks for the assessment of individual training programs and data for program improvement.</p> </sec> </abstract>