Friday, July 31, 2009

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?

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