Changes to the 2011 Doctoral Annual Report Online (ARO)

The Doctoral ARO Instructions (PDF, 1MB) have been modified for clarity, provide greater detail where needed, and are now navigable, providing hyperlinks to specific content. The Table of Contents of the document lists every heading and subtopic of the ARO and provides hyperlinks to each topic. For example:

• Suppose you have read through the entire instructions document and have entered all of the information for each of your students and faculty members. Now it is time to formally submit the report, but you forget exactly how to do it. You can now go back to the instructions and click on the “Submit ARO” heading in the Table of Contents. This will bring you to that section in the document.  You no longer have to scroll through to try to find that section.

In July 2010, the Commission on Accreditation (CoA) modified Implementing Regulation (IR) C-20 (PDF, 4.3MB — Note: View in Acrobat Reader 9 or later), which requires accredited doctoral programs to update select information by October 1 of each year. This information on a program’s website can be no more than one click away from the program’s homepage. 

The Program page of the ARO is capable of storing the URLs of both the program homepage and the IR C-20 data. It is found in the same location as the program’s address. Instructions have been modified to read: 

• C-20 Website
  Please enter the URL for the webpage that contains the “Student Admissions, Outcomes and Other Data” that is required by Implementing Regulation C-20.

• Website
  Please enter the URL for your program’s home webpage. Do not enter the URL for your department’s webpage. This link is specific to your individual accredited program.

1) Based on feedback from accredited programs and the CoA, the answer choices for two questions have been modified:

• Gender
  Students/Faculty Members now have the options of “Female”, “Male”, “Transgendered” and “Other”. 

• Ethnicity
  The ethnicity classifications on the ARO have changed to be more consistent with the reporting requirements of the U.S. Department of Education. Students/Faculty Members are now able to choose one or more of the following options: 

-American Indian or Alaska Native 

-Asian 

-Black or African American 

-Hispanic-Latino 

-Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 

-White 

-Not Reported 

-Canadian Institution (these programs are not required to report or track ethnicity)

*Please go to the U.S. Department of Education website for information on the definitions of these options.

Note:  You may need to re-enter gender and ethnicity responses for some continuing students or faculty members in light of these changes. You may also find that a student’s or faculty member’s ethnic classification is no longer prepopulated. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We believe the changes we have made will allow us to more accurately track the ethnic composition of accredited programs, and remain in compliance with U.S. Department of Education definitions.

2) We would like to emphasize a change that was made last year. The Student/Faculty Member List page of the ARO now lists each person by 6 variables: ARO ID#, Gender, Ethnicity, Date Entered, Date Left and the “Notes” section found on the Demographics page.  

• Sorting. As a result, you are capable of sorting each of the columns according to each of these variables. 

• Names. We strongly encourage you to enter a student’s or faculty member’s name or institution-specific ID # in the Notes section on the Demographics page. This will make it easier for you to identify each of your students/faculty members and enter their information for the year. Please note: The Office of Program Consultation (OPCA) and the CoA will not use this information in any data analysis on accredited programs. It is purely for your convenience during data entry.

Two questions have been added to both of these sections:

• Present to Lay Audience
  Indicate if the student/faculty member presented a psychological topic to a lay or community audience during the current reporting period by selecting either "Yes", "No" or "N/A." 

• Leadership Roles or Activities in Professional Organizations
  Indicate if the student/faculty member was involved in leadership roles or activities in professional organizations during the current reporting period by selecting either "Yes", "No" or "N/A." These can include roles in State/Provincial, Regional or National professional organizations.

Three questions on this page have been slightly modified:

• Applied for Internship
  This question, unlike the undergraduate questions, must be completed every year the student is in the program.  

• Student Placed in Internship
  This question is dependent on the answer to the previous one. Only if a student indicates that he/she applied for internship, will this question appear on this page of the ARO. 

• Practicum Hours
  This question is also dependent on the answer to “Applied for Internship” on this page. It will only appear if the student indicates that he/she did apply for internship. To be consistent with the APPIC Application for Psychology Internship, you now only have to provide the number of doctoral hours, separately, for: 

-Intervention 

-Assessment 

-Supervision

Programs are currently required to update the initial postdoctoral and employment information for all alumni that are between 3 and 10 years removed from the program and are not licensed. Because many alumni engage in multiple kinds of activities in their jobs/residencies, you now have the ability to select one or more of the following options:

• Administration 

• Assessment 

• Consultation 

• Psychotherapy 

• Research Supervision 

• Teaching

Checking Data Accuracy

A new page, “Data Check”, has replaced the “Action Items” page in the ARO. This page will allow you to review the answers to every single question for each of your students/faculty members and the answers to the Questionnaire. This enables you to review the answer to each question without going back into the records of each student and faculty member.

In order to review your data, you must create three separate reports: Questionnaire, Students and Faculty.    

• Questionnaire. The report that is generated for the Questionnaire will list the answer to each question on that page. If you see an error, please contact the Research Assistant. You do not have the capability of changing the answers on this page; only the OPCA does. 

• Students/Faculty. The reports that are generated for students and faculty members will list each person in the rows and each question in the columns. You can review the answers to each question and if you find a mistake, you can navigate back to that person’s record and make the appropriate change.

Saving Records

This new capability is beneficial in another way. If you determine that all information is accurate, you can save copies of these spreadsheets for your own records. Many programs request this information from the OPCA in the course of completing a Self-Study. If you keep these records every year, you will not have to request this information, and can have access to it year-round.

Important: The data that is populated in these reports is based on the data in the system at that particular moment in time. The ARO is set up to allow you to make edits at any point before the system closes on September 15, 2011. If you make any edits after generating these reports, they will no longer be accurate reflections of your ARO data.

In light of past confusion regarding completing the ARO, we have developed a more formal Submit mechanism this year.

The Summary page has now been renamed the “Submit ARO” page. This page is almost identical to the Summary page. It will still contain the Summary, which can be viewed and saved for your records. When you click on the Submit button at the bottom, one of two things will occur. 

1. If the ARO is missing information, an “Incomplete” window will appear. It will say that some questions have not been answered and that the missing information is listed at the bottom of the page in red font. 

2. If the ARO is complete, a “Congratulations” window will appear. It will also send an email to the address listed at the bottom of the page. This email will contain a copy of the Summary and explicitly state that the ARO is complete. However, this email will also include the following paragraph:

Disclaimer: This email confirms the completion of your program’s Annual Report based on the data entered on the site up to the date of this email. If you edit your program’s report after this date, this completion notification is no longer valid. If you edit any information in your program’s report after the date of this email you will need to go to the “Submit ARO” page and resubmit the data.

Making Changes After Submission

Changes to the ARO can be made at any point before the system closes on September 15, 2011; however, you must go through the Submit ARO process again. Remember, in any case where we identify a program as not completing the ARO and that program claims to have completed the ARO based on a confirmatory email, we will compare the dates of the email to the ARO log that tracks when each program modifies its information.