The definition and nature of academic work in the digital age is constantly changing. Computer-mediated communication is reconfiguring the way in which scholarly knowledge is produced and disseminated. In addition, new forms of scholarship are beginning to emerge in electronic environments. Electronic scholarship mimics print scholarship in some important ways, but there are also important differences. The World Wide Web, in particular, is creating new opportunities to integrate research, teaching, and community service. For example, developing comprehensive web pages for a class may be of service to the academic community (local or global) and result in the production and communication of significant new scholarly work.

The LITS Advisory Committee recognizes that these new technologies provide both new opportunities and new challenges to academia. Among these challenges is the establishment of criteria for evaluating scholarly work involving technology. The LITS Advisory Committee has spent the past year examining the ways in which these issues are addressed at other institutions. In an effort to provide assistance to faculty members, departments, programs, college committees, and administrators, the committee has drafted the following guidelines for the evaluation of scholarly work involving technology. These guidelines may be helpful in the evaluation of individual faculty members under consideration for appointment, reappointment, tenure, and promotion when some portion of the work being reviewed involves work with technology.

Many institutions have come to recognize that scholarly work involving technology, like other forms of scholarship, should be evaluated as an integral part of a faculty member's accomplishments. However, this has not always proven easy to implement. On the one hand, as stated in the Modern Language Association's Guidelines for Evaluating Computer-Related Work in the Modern Languages (April 1986), "Faculty members who pursue computer-related work as part of their formal assignments should be prepared to make explicit the results, theoretical basis, and intellectual rigor of their work, as well as its relevance to the discipline." On the other hand, departments/programs, reappointment, promotion and tenure committees face new burdens in keeping pace with the changing norms in each discipline with respect to how service, teaching, and scholarship are accomplished via technology.

In order to evaluate a candidate's work with technology for purposes of reappointment, promotion and tenure, departments and programs might want to take into account several features of technology-related work:

• Under certain conditions, it may be important that the candidate's work be evaluated by persons knowledgeable about the use of technology in the candidate's field. At times, this may be possible only by seeking qualified outside reviewers beyond the candidate's home campus. Evaluation of scholars who have made extensive use of course web sites, instructional software, or personal or institutional home pages may pose difficult challenges during periods of evaluation, particularly for tenure and promotion, if peers in the home institution are not fully versed in these new technologies. Review of such materials in addition to the materials traditionally included in an external dossier can provide valuable additional perspectives from which a candidate's work can be viewed.
• Use of the Internet as a means of publication is changing rapidly, in ways unique to each discipline. Departments/programs can facilitate the use of such media, as well as clarify how such sources can be incorporated into the evaluative process, only by remaining aware of the latest norms for publication and scholarly interaction. Sometimes this may require extra effort on the part of senior members of the department to seek outside advice and consultation. It may also be possible for a particular member (or members) of the senior faculty to take responsibility for keeping the department informed of new changes in this area and communicating clearly to junior faculty how Internet-based publications are used in evaluation for tenure.
• Work with technology is often collaborative. It is not uncommon for instructors on different campuses to link their courses, for example. It is also not uncommon for people working with technology to work closely with others in different areas of the campus - e.g., faculty in history using the geographic information systems workstation and software in teaching and research. Under these conditions, departments and programs may seek the assistance of experts completely outside of the relevant discipline in order to assess better the effectiveness of such contributions to teaching, research, and community service.
• Until technology is pervasive in college work, faculty members who are adept at technology may find themselves providing support to students and colleagues outside of class and office hours, sometimes taking on responsibilities which would not normally fall under their purview. Additionally, they may be recruited into a disproportionate number of committees as expertise with technology becomes increasingly important to the life of the college. It is possible that such work might not be fully appreciated during evaluations. Thus, it may be important to explicitly recognize this aspect of community service.
• There is an additional overhead cost borne by individuals engaged in work employing technology. Beyond the normal demands of keeping abreast of a field, rapidly changing technology must also be 'relearned' constantly and obsolete knowledge is often truly obsolete. Time spent learning technology that will soon become obsolete is an unavoidable cost as there is no such thing as waiting for the final version. This is another area that may need to be explicitly recognized both before and during the evaluative process.
• One advantage of computer-mediated communication is that it may provide new venues for learning about a candidate's work and of assessing the candidate's role within the profession. For example, a person's web page may offer outside reviewers a wider lens through which to view a candidate's research. Similarly, a candidate's sustained and careful participation in online discussion groups related to his/her areas of scholarly expertise can have an impact on the profession.
• Evaluative bodies, whether departments/programs or advisory committees, have recognized that scholarly work is sometimes designed specifically for presentation using new forms of media. Under such conditions, the must effective way to evaluate the candidate's work is in the medium in which it was produced. Hard copy substitutes for evaluating web pages online have proven a poor choice.
• Lastly, the new mechanisms available for scholarly work challenge all academic institutions (and the departments/programs that comprise such institutions) to rethink traditional forms of scholarship and communication. Creating venues for discussion of these issues may prove one of the most important actions that can be taken. Departments/programs might consider having periodic extended meetings or retreats to discuss the impact of these technologies on their field, on their teaching, and on the way members of the department/program engage in community service.

Faculty members on the LITS Advisory Committee would be pleased to work with hiring committees to insure that expectations for work with technology and online scholarship are communicated to prospective new hires. Further, prospective hires should be informed about whether and how work with technology and online scholarship will be considered in the reappointment, tenure and promotion process.

The rapid pace of technological change makes it impossible for any set of guidelines to account completely for the ways the technology (and thus the work done with it) is making an impact on our profession. Nevertheless, it is important that the college find ways to evaluate faculty uses of technology in teaching, research, and service. We hope this document can provide a place to begin.