****** From: http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i24/24a02501.htm Ever So Slowly, Colleges Start to Count Work With Technology in Tenure Decisions The key may be a growing movement for peer review of Web sites and online teaching materials By JEFFREY R. YOUNG Don't waste time teaching online or laboring over electronic course enhancements unless you've already climbed to the top of the tenure-and-promotion ladder. Review committees may not take technology work seriously, so stick to traditional academic activities, like publishing journal articles. That's the warning Gary Bradshaw heard from colleagues when he told them about his work on ePsych, an online resource to help introductory psychology students. He already had tenure when he started the online project, but he found out the hard way that the advice was sound. He was twice turned down for a promotion to full professor at Mississippi State University, where he is an associate professor of psychology. (The chairman of the psychology department, Stephen B. Klein, said he could not discuss personnel issues.) Mr. Bradshaw feels that work creating online teaching materials such as sophisticated Web sites or multimedia tools designed to help students slips through the cracks of the three traditional categories used in promotion: teaching, research, and service. | |
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