The evaluation of scholarship in academic promotion and tenure processes: Past, present, and future

Abstract

Review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes significantly affect how faculty direct their own career and scholarly progression. Although RPT practices vary between and within institutions, and affect various disciplines, ranks, institution types, genders, and ethnicity in different ways, some consistent themes emerge when investigating what faculty would like to change about RPT. For instance, over the last few decades, RPT processes have generally increased the value placed on research, at the expense of teaching and service, which often results in an incongruity between how faculty actually spend their time vs. what is considered in their evaluation. Another issue relates to publication practices: most agree RPT requirements should encourage peer-reviewed works of high quality, but in practice, the value of publications is often assessed using shortcuts such as the prestige of the publication venue, rather than on the quality and rigor of peer review of each individual item. Open access and online publishing have made these issues even murkier due to misconceptions about peer review practices and concerns about predatory online publishers, which leaves traditional publishing formats the most desired despite their restricted circulation. And, efforts to replace journal-level measures such as the impact factor with more precise article-level metrics (e.g., citation counts and altmetrics) have been slow to integrate with the RPT process. Questions remain as to whether, or how, RPT practices should be changed to better reflect faculty work patterns and reduce pressure to publish in only the most prestigious traditional formats. To determine the most useful way to change RPT, we need to assess further the needs and perceptions of faculty and administrators, and gain a better understanding of the level of influence of written RPT guidelines and policy in an often vague process that is meant to allow for flexibility in assessing individuals.

On the evaluation of research software: the CDUR procedure

“…A more complex way for RS identification than a citation form is the use of metadatasets. The Software Citation Implementation Working Group is working over several possibilities for software metadatasets 60 . The PRESOFT (Preservation for REsearch SOFTware) metadataset proposed for RS in 35 is built over the skeleton of the RS reference cards that where published between 2008 and 2013 by the PLUME project 31.…”

“…The evaluation of this item should follow whatever standards for scientific research quality in the concerned community (e.g. 8,46, 59,60). This is the step where the RS related publications (as described in the RS definition section) come into play, and where the evaluation should consider the difficulty of the addressed scientific problems, the quality of the obtained results, the efficiency of the proposed algorithms, etc.…”

Contemporary Policy Challenges in Protecting the Homeland

“…There are reasonable concerns about being easily able to differentiate between predatory e‐journals and respectable open‐access journals (Speier, Palmer, Wren, & Hahn, ). As promotion and tenure review progress to higher levels where less is known about the substantive area of study, promotion packets that look atypical may experience bias as seen in other broad fields of study such as business (Henderson, Ganesh, & Chandy, ) and life sciences (Schimanski & Alperin, ). SUNY Albany is unique among Carnegie R1 universities in that it has focused an entire college around a comprehensive concept of homeland security.…”

Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin Volume 28 Number 3 August 2019 85–114

“…Many would likely also include broader impact activities like K-12 school outreach, public lectures, art installations, reports to local environmental agencies, and expert testimony to policy makers. Yet, faculty frequently report that their institutions rely heavily on accomplishments in research, like publishing and grant funding, to determine tenure and promotion (Schimanski and Alperin 2018).…”