20.351 MLA report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 351.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 07:12:46 +0000
         From: Geoffrey Rockwell <georock_at_mcmaster.ca>
         Subject: MLA Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure
and Promotion

Dear Willard,

Humanists concerned about digital scholarship and tenure will like
the new report from the MLA Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for
Tenure and Promotion.

http://www.mla.org/tenure_promotion

The Executive Summary reports,

"Even more troubling is the state of evaluation for digital
scholarship, now an extensively used resource for scholars across
the humanities: 40.8% of departments in doctorate-granting
institutions report no experience evaluating refereed articles in
electronic format, and 65.7% report no experience evaluating
monographs in electronic format. (p. 3)"

The 4th recommendation of the report is that,

"Departments and institutions should recognize the legitimacy of
scholarship produced in new media, whether by individuals or in
collaboration, and create procedures for evaluating these forms of
scholarship. (p. 3)"

Bravo! As Scott Jaschik puts it in a story on "Rethinking Tenure -
And Much More" (http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/12/08/mla>),
departments should'

"Accept "the legitimacy of scholarship produced in new media," ending
the assumption that print is necessarily better. (And to the extent
that some professors and departments don't know how to evaluate
quality in new media, "the onus is on the department" to learn, not
on the scholar using new media, Stanton said.)"

Donna Stanton chaired the MLA task force and provided the briefing
for the quote.

Yours,

Geoffrey R.
Received on Wed Dec 13 2006 - 03:07:27 EST