VU Biomedical Ph.D. Outcomes

The 3-Tiered Taxonomy captures three pieces of information about each employment record: the “sector” in which the alumnus works, the “career type” of the position, and the “job function” of the position. There are 7 answer options for “sector” and “career type,” and 25 answer options for “job function.” The 3 tiers and corresponding answer options are shown in the table below. For full definitions and coding clarifications, view our VU-BRET-v2019-taxonomy

Major differences from the RBR taxonomy

The VU BRET taxonomy is very similar to the taxonomy adopted by RBR, with the following notable exceptions:

1. The VU BRET taxonomy contains two additional answer options in the “sector” and “career type” tiers for individuals who are “not employed” or “deceased.”
2. The “career type” tier of the RBR taxonomy classifies non-research and non-teaching jobs as either “science-related” or “not related to science,” whereas the VU BRET taxonomy classifies non-research and non-teaching jobs as “primarily administrative, managerial, or operational.” The VU BRET taxonomy captures relatedness to science in a separate “science- or research-related” flag that is assigned to every position.
3. The “job function” tier of the RBR taxonomy has five possible job functions for faculty which are defined on the basis of tenure status and part- or full-time work status. Since tenure and work status do not describe what someone does professionally, and tenure and work status are difficult to determine with 100% certainty, the VU BRET taxonomy does not classify faculty based on tenure or work status in the “job function” tier. Instead, the VU BRET taxonomy has three possible “job functions” for individuals with faculty appointments. These “job functions” are defined based on the type of work someone does, and information about their faculty appointment is recorded in separate faculty flag fields:
   1. Principal investigator or group leader (used for group leaders in academia, government, nonprofits, or industry)
   2. Research faculty or staff (used for research staff in academia, government, nonprofits, or industry)
   3. Teaching faculty or staff
4. Other differences in the “job function” options between the VU BRET taxonomy and the RBR taxonomy are described in this VU-BRET-v2019-to-RBR-crosswalk.

Tracking Alumni Employment Outcomes

We have tracked the employment outcomes of our biomedical Ph.D. alumni for over a decade. In 2007, we implemented an exit survey to collect “first destination” employment information for biomedical Ph.D. graduates; this predoctoral exit survey has a completion rate of over 90%. In 2012, we hired our first summer intern to start finding alumni employment information. We update these employment records about every two years, with our most recent update occurring in 2019. We have been able to find >90% of our alumni using Google searches of publicly available information, including PubMed, ResearchGate, and institutional websites.  We capture the employment information in spreadsheets, classify the outcomes using the taxonomy described below, and store the information in a database optimized for tracking employment outcomes over time.

Overview of the Process Used to Classify Alumni Employment Records

Faculty Classification System

The "job function" tier of the VU BRET Taxonomy does not define job functions for faculty on the basis of tenure or full- or part-time tenure status. Instead, the VU BRET Taxonomy defines faculty job functions based on the type of work an individual does. Faculty may be researchers, teachers, administrators, or some combination thereof. Rather than attempting to capture this complexity in the "job function" tier, as the RBR taxonomy does through the use of five unique faculty "job functions," we developed an alternate strategy.

In the VU BRET Taxonomy, alumni with faculty appointments are classified in the "job function" tier according to what they do: "principal investigator or group leader" or "research faculty or staff" or "teaching faculty or staff" or "administration." The record is then assigned a faculty flag, “has a faculty appointment=yes" and classified further. We record three elements of the job title (prefix, rank, and title) and assign a presumed tenure status to each record.

Capturing the prefix, rank, and faculty title from the job title is straightforward and offers numerous benefits. First, it allows us to follow progression of alumni faculty careers over time. Second, certain faculty titles or prefixes are presumed indicative of tenure status, as noted in the table below.

For each faculty record, a “presumed tenure status” is assigned based on publicly available information. The word “presumed” underscores the fact we cannot be certain of tenure status without contacting individuals or institutions. Evidence of a tenure-track or tenured status includes:

• Announcements of promotion or tenure appointments on university websites or social media
• Website describing the faculty member’s research program and team
• The presence of Ph.D. students or postdoctoral fellows currently advised by the faculty member
• Named professorships or leadership positions within the department
• Departmental listings of faculty, often with links to faculty CVs or research programs
• Presence of large research grants or educational grants from major funders like the NIH or NSF
• Multiple last-author publications (biomedical sciences)

If our confidence in assigning tenure status is low, even after reviewing this information, the record is assigned “tenure status unknown.”

Caveats

Job titles vary substantially from institution to institution. In some institutions, titles like "Instructor" or "Lecturer" are not faculty appointments. In the interest of expediency, we set rules to classify these titles as "has a faculty appointment=yes." However, if 100% accuracy is required for a project, coders are encouraged to consult the faculty manual posted on an institution's website to determine whether a particular title is indeed a faculty appointment.

Assigning tenure status is particularly difficult for faculty employed at foreign universities. In lieu of attempting to discern tenure status, we designate the "presumed tenure status" of faculty employed at non-US universities as "Foreign Institution."