In accordance with the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Institutional Quality Assurance Process (IQAP), the Program Self-Study Reports were completed in July 2022. For the programs under review M.Sc. Physics and PhD. Physics, the report contained the degree level expectations for these programs, an analytical assessment of the programs, course outlines, program-related data, survey data from the Office of Quality Assurance and appendices with sample examinations and CVs of faculty members. Two arm's-length external reviewers (Jean-François Bisson, PhD, Département de physique et d’astronomie, Université de Moncton and Marek Stastna, PhD Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo) were selected from a list of possible reviewers and approved by the Dean of Gruduate Studies. An internal reviewer, Dr Francis Okou from the Faculty of Engineering, was also selected for participation in the ERC. They reviewed the self-study documentation and conducted an on-site visit to RMC from 18 to 19 October 2022. They submitted their report on 30 November 2022.
In their report, the ERC implies that the graduate programs in Physics at RMC are on par with similar programs offered in comparable Canadian institutions. The ERC identified a number of strengths of the graduate programs in Physics including the availability of lab equipment, active research groups, access to military data, military-themed problems and military funding streams; and many well-developed, unique niches in the applied research landscape. The ERC also identified several areas of concern such as: poor connectivity and poor access to computing resources; significant research effort expended away from RMC (e.g., at Queen’s); under-utilization of lab facilities by students and small number of graduate students: no clear strategy for attaining graduate-level skills in computing and computational physics; limited examples of internal collaborations among faculty members; and lack of industrial partners and a system for finding partners for R&D projects.
The Program Chair, after consultation with Faculty and staff in the programs, submitted a response to the ERC Report in March 2023. The Dean of Graduate Studies prepared this Final Assessment Report on 9 August 2023. In the FAR, it was concluded that the ERC Report provided positive feedback on the outcomes of the graduate programs in Physics and confirmed that the RMC is delivering programs consistent with other comparable institutions in Ontario.