MLA Report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion

As a follow-up to last night's discussion about the future role digital and multimedia publication might play in our profession, I want to call your attention to the new MLA Report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure. The Executive Summary report is troubled by "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." The Executive Summary goes on to recommend that "the profession as a whole should develop a more capacious conception of scholarship by rethinking the dominance of the monograph, promoting the scholarly essay, establishing multiple pathways to tenure, and using scholarly portfolios," and, "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." Those writing the report clearly understand that the age of networked scholarship is upon us, and they are troubled by the inattention of most departments to the changes we've been discussing, and the fact that our profession has yet to start sorting out how to "count" digital publication. The full report is available on the MLA website