In response to the discussions on ACW-L and the Tuesday Cafe (February 21, 1995), I've drafted the following position statement regarding the ways our work with instructional technology is evaluated and valued by the professions. In the long run, I think it would be useful to combine this statement (whatever it turns out to be when revised by others) with the statement Eric began (as it gets revised) so that we're taking a position on the resources available and evaluation simultaneously. The NCTE Instructional Technology Committee is working on these issues, and the MLA has a commission drafting a statement on evaluating faculty (Louise Wetherbee Phelps and Jim Slevin are on it, among others), and I think we should work with these other groups as much as possible, as well as with the WPA organization. Astute readers will notice that I've used the Portland Resolution on WPAs as an organizational guide, and a message from Louise Phelps also helped me think about all this stuff, as did the 2/21 Netoric log.Anyway....this is a profitable place to start, methinks, and I look forward to the next round of discussion.
The following issues should be taken up by institutions and departments, and promotion and tenure committees:
- Job Descriptions
Increased use of instructional technology, falling computer prices, and the growth of the Internet have increased pressure on English Departments to look at the ways computers might aid the development of writing programs. Faculty who are hired to assist in these efforts should be provided with a clear description of the tasks or roles they are expected to carry out or play. The descriptions should be flexible enough that the faculty member and institution can best meet current needs, but the descriptions should be clear enough that both faculty member and department share an understanding of the ways in which technological work will be evaluated. Issues to be considered include the amount of release time provided to the faculty member, staff or technical assistance to be provided, and expectations for faculty development and ways in which the faculty member's work will be shared with other faculty.
The faculty member should know who will evaluate his/her work, and to whom s/he is responsible. The institution should be prepared to fund faculty development, hardware, and software for this faculty member so that s/he can keep up with current developments.
- Evaluating Work with Technology
Work with instructional technology cuts across the categories traditionally used to evaluate faculty for tenure and promotion: research, service, and teaching. It is important that institutions recognize the important functions carried out by faculty who develop instructional technology strategies within their departments and schools. Fundamentally, institutions must recognize the intellectual work that goes into technological development, and create guidelines by which this work can be recognized. The fundamental issue to deal with may well be the ways in which different dimensions of the same tasks address different kinds of evaluative categories.
There are some dimensions of technological work that might well fall under the traditional definitions of service: some aspects of running a computer lab involve technical or managerial skills that could be counted as service to the university.
Other aspects of technological work involve teaching, however, especially if institutions define "teaching activities" as those things that encourage the development of good teaching among others as well as activities that occur within a classroom or in transactions between students and teachers. Faculty development workshops organized by a faculty member working as a "technorhetorician," especially workshops which introduce local faculty to conversations literally and figuratively carried on by colleagues on other campuses, contribute to good teaching. Publications and presentations (designed for students or designed for other faculty) that are designed to help develop curriculum or classroom practices do likewise. Curriculum development for computer-based writing courses, and curriculum development that enables teachers and students to share work with teachers and students on other campuses further contributes to the evolution of teaching practices. Presentations or meetings with Deans, Technology Directors, and Trustees who provide crucial support for classroom labs may also be viewed as furthering teaching.
Finally, many aspects of work with technology involve research: publications and presentations on the theories of technology and computer-mediated communication and composition, internal studies on the effectiveness of computerized instruction or the results of computerized instruction; curriculum development that brings research to bear on local issues may all be viewed as forms of research.
Faculty members who work with technology present their work in various genres, and institutions must negotiate with faculty in order to clarify the kinds of work that will work to the mutual benefit of the department, the faculty member, and the students. It is important to establish reasonable expectations, to provide adequate resources so that the technological work will be valued, and so that the ways in which technological work seems to blend categories of traditional evaluation does not work against faculty members.