Develop expertise, written materials, and a library of resources that will assist adult learners in your program. Develop a participatory structure for improvement by regularly asking for input on how to make the program better. The preliminary impact reported after this first year of the program makes its efficiency goals for degree completion look promising indeed. A thorough and useful description of each step in developing and testing this model is provided for other practitioners. Research literature is cited to establish the usual situation in Ph.D. graduate study and the rationale for the interventions.
Diagrams illustrate the program structure before and after improvements.
In short, if you decide to try this approach in your own institution, a lot of the supporting research is already in place to save you time. The program appears doable in virtually any institution of higher learning. In fact, the interventions seem so clearly based on common academic sense that you wonder why someone didn't do this long ago. Reported but not studied was time saved in the cohort groups acting as research teams. Students didn't have to wait to see their advisors when more advanced students could help with problems.