Evaluating Digital Scholarship: New Resource

The Modern Language Association continues to develop resources to assist faculty and others in evaluating the quality of digital materials for faculty. The newly produced Evaluation wiki is especially helpful because it allows many of us to contribute ideas and resources.

This short guide to the evaluation of digital works is an especially good resource to help faculty members think through their material.

Should Faculty be required to Publish on the Web for Promotion?

Most of the discussion regarding the web and issues of tenure and promotion have asked questions like:

1. Will web-based contributions count for promotion and tenure?
2. What are the equivalences between traditional scholarly work and web-based work?

But maybe we should be asking another question:

Why shouldn't faculty be required to distribute their work via the web? In an age in which a significant amount of information is available in various online venues, shouldn't scholars be expected to contribute to the intellectual discussions in their fields? Don't scholars also have an obligation to participate in the public discussion of scientific issues?

In addition to asking scholars about their production of journal articles and books, perhaps we should begin reviewing their web-based contributions.

What's wrong with this expectation?

Human Communication Eras

In a interesting paper, "Once in a hundred generations" Paul Berkman, writes,

"Once in a hundred generations, every 2000 years, an information technology threshold is reached that changes human capacity to manage and discover knowledge. Invention of the digital medium created such a paradigm shift and we are now faced with the challenge of sustaining the information products generated with this transformational technology."

Berkman goes on to describe the implications of this digital transformation for libraries, but the emergence of digital information has implications for learning and all parts of society that involves knol edge and information. This reminds us how big of a change we are experiencing.