Proposed Considerations in Evaluating
Electronic Scholarly Publications for Tenure

A. The Issues

In considering electronic publications, the following issues are of significance

1. Quality of the Publication: The work should be refereed and edited at least at the same level as print publications. Some specific relevant questions are as follows.

• a. What is the relative standing of the publisher?
• b. Does the electronic publisher rely on an Editorial Board?
• c. Has the publication undergone peer review?
• d. Is the peer review process fair and reliable?
• e. Is a book published electronically reviewed and cited after its publication?
• f. Can its electronic form be detrimental to its being reviewed in long established, printed periodicals?
• g. How easily accessed are electronic reviews compared to printed reviews?

2. Additional Efforts/Expertise Needed for Electronic Publication: Often publication of certain material such as CD-ROM's and electronic books require substantial time commitments to develop new skills in areas such as imaging, multimedia, and other technologies.

• a. The efforts of faculty in developing such skills should be recognized, particularly when they require the faculty member's intellectual expertise and offer value to the institution.
• b. Time and efforts spent by faculty on acquiring additional knowledge or skills to publish electronically should be recognized as they are in learning a new language or extended travel for research/scholarly activities.
• c. The form of electronic publication should be evaluated as to how creatively has it been used in relation to content, and what the scholar's contribution has been to this.
• d. Academic units should recognize the fact that often faculty need to engage in new and creative areas or technologies to maintain the leadership status of the institution in the discipline.

3. Sustainability of the Work: Sustainability of the work may be considered as a factor in evaluating electronic publications. Specifically, the following issues may be taken into account.

• a. How long will the electronic publication be available in the form in which it was first issued in the ever changing world of electronics?
• b. How will it be archived so that readers can have access to it in its original form twenty years after its publication?
• c. What information is available about the impact of the document? For example, whose documents link to it hypertextually, whose online syllabi refer to it, what server log data is available on the number of times it has been accessed?

B. Recommendations

The following recommendations are made by the Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure for further work in establishing guidelines for this area:

1. Conduct a Survey: It is recommended that a survey of all academic units be conducted to collect more information about the current status of evaluating electronic publications. Sample questions are.

• a. What is the current state of electronic publications within your discipline?
• b. How does your P& T committee evaluate electronic publications?
• c. What criteria are expected to ascertain the quality of electronic publications?

2. Draft Suggested Guidelines: Based on the results of the survey, the Committee on AF&T may wish to have further committee discussions then draft final suggested guidelines for the SE