Manufacturing Kairos: Preparing Faculty to Evaluate Digital Scholarship

Policy

OSU Department of English Guidelines for Evaluating Computer-Related Work in the Modern Languages (1986)

Typically, a candidate for promotion to the rank of Associate Professor will be expected to present to reviewers a book…published by a scholarly press with a strong reputation.
Typically takes the form of a published book as well as essays in refereed journals.

OSU Department of English Pattern of Administration (2007)

Scholarship
In research, we require evidence of a faculty member's ability to make significant, high-quality contributions to important conversations in his or her field; this evidence typically takes the form of a published book or a sustained, original scholarly project in another form appropriate to the field, as well as essays in major refereed journals or edited volumes, conference papers at national meetings of scholarly organizations, and book reviews, and review essay. Many factors are taken into consideration to assure that faculty meet their obligations in the area of scholarship. This determination is made according to the criteria of quality and consistency through the process of Annual Review. (16)

Promotion and Tenure Reviews: General Criteria
...Scholarship is indispensable to membership on the University's graduate faculty, and is expected of all persons holding professorial rank. Beyond the quantitative standards for promotion to each rank (see below), the Department values especially the quality of a candidate's scholarship--its originality, lucidity, and intellectual depth. Evidence of scholarship should consist of published scholarship or creative work, singly or collaboratively authored, or, where appropriate, recordings, videotapes, films, and works in electronic or other media, singly or collaboratively produced. Publication and other scholarly and creative activities occur in diverse media (e.g., print and digital format), and the same standard—clear excellence—applies regardless of the medium. Scholarship and creative work should normally be reviewed in the medium in which it was published (e.g., web publications should be read online). (15)

Lee, Valerie & Cynthia L. Selfe. "Our Capacious Caper: Exposing Print-Culture Bias in Departmental Tenure Documents." ADE Bulletin 145 (Spring 2008): 51-58. (2008)

"The large cohort of digital media faculty members banded with other senior faculty members who had shifted their emphases to digital composing and sent the Executive Committee, the department’s elected advisory group, a manifesto. Imagine" (Valerie Lee 52).

Undergirding each of these changes, of course, was the need for colleagues to recognize that scholarly work in English studies continues to be elastic and that excellence takes forms other than print monographs....We also, however, wanted to encourage colleagues—especially those who serve on tenure and promotion committees—to learn how to read new forms of digital media work in their native environment. (Cynthia Selfe 57)