A repeated theme in the literature of electronic publishing in the tenure review process is that electronic publications, even those with peer-review systems in place, are perceived as less credible than paper publications, in part because of their perceived openness. The “acceptance rate” of an academic journal is often considered an inverse measure of its quality. E-journals, on the other hand, can accept as many or as few documents as they wish and publish as often or as seldom as necessary. Yet in tenure and promotion decisions, a process that relies largely on quantifiable data (the number of publications) for evaluation, how do we account for publications for which we are merely one of many authors and editors?
Perhaps the answer is that we do not: “Whether a text exists as ink on paper, or as electronic data on a storage disk, does not seem to alter the content of what an article has to say…Why do we value ‘refereed journal publication’ as the common coin of academic evaluation, when other forms of scholarly exchange (such as posting an article or summarizing research on an electronic bulletin board) might in fact reach and influence the ideas of a far greater number of colleagues?” (Burbules and Bruce 1995, 12-13).
I plan to report on the results of a pilot survey that I conducted in early March to discover whether tenure-track faculty in technical and professional communication to determine perceive of e-journals, blogs, and wikis as scholarly activity. This information may be used to help the editors of the Orange Journal make decisions about the structure of the journal and its review process. Specifically, this presentation will discuss the responses to the following four questions:
1. How much weight does your T&P committee place on e-journals compared to traditional print journals?
2. If you have published an article in an e-journal, please explain why you decided that format was valuable. How was news of your publication in the e-journal received by your colleagues?
3. If you have used blogs or wikis for collaborative writing, please describe an example of how and why you chose this medium.
4. Do you consider blogs and/or wikis to be research or scholarly activity?
NOTE: I was added to the panel just before the conference as a replacement; this abstract was not submitted for peer review by CCCC.