Week 6: Reward and tenure
Introduction
One reservation about digital scholarship that often arises is that whilst engaging in activities such as blogging, or using social media may be rewarding personally, it is not recognised by institutions. If you wish to progress in a career as an academic, the emphasis is on traditional activities still, such as publishing articles in recognised journals. It is this relationship with reward and tenure that we will examine this week.
Watch Martin Weller discuss how scholarly work is recognised:
Download this video clip.Video player: Week 6 introduction
Transcript: Week 6 introduction
Martin Weller
This week is all about publications, page imprints, likes, invitations, and clouts. Having looked at Boyer’s four categories, the remainder of the course considers some implications of digital scholarship. One topic that’s always raised whenever the subject of digital scholarship is discussed is that of getting recognition.
New researchers can often be told, don’t focus on blogs, get published in the key journals. But the reality is you have to play both games. It’s true that traditional measures, publications, and your teaching record are important, but so is having a good online identity.
The good news is, these things aren’t necessarily in competition with each other. Establishing an online identity can lead to more citations for your published work, invitations to give keynote talks, and lead to collaborations on research. It is true, though, that knowing how to measure the impact of digital scholarship is difficult. Promotional panels know what a good publication record looks like but don’t necessarily know what a good blog impact should be. So this week you’ll explore some of the issues and see how you can blow your own digital trumpet a little better.
Week 6 introduction
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By the end of this week you will have:
- gained an understanding of how digital scholarship might be recognised for tenure
- an appreciation of how digital scholarship and traditional scholarship can be complementary practices.