SIGCSE Committee on Models for Evaluating Faculty Scholarship

Charter Approved: 9 January 2006

Facilitators: Gerald Kruse, Juniata College; Shmuel Fink, Touro College; and Keith Olson, Utah Valley State College

Summary

Traditionally, promotion and tenure at colleges and universities depend upon the evaluation of faculty in several of the following areas: teaching, scholarship, advising, and service. Of course, criteria and processes for each of these areas depend greatly on priorities and procedures at individual institutions, and different schools weigh achievements in these three areas differently. Ultimately, faculty evaluation depends upon local factors, and thus is beyond the purview of SIGCSE or other international organizations.

At the same time, considerable anecdotal data suggest that many SIGCSE members have strong interests in expectations and procedures for the promotion and tenure of faculty.

Thus, the basic goal of this SIGCSE Committee is to identify possible models that may be helpful to individuals, departments, and schools in reviewing the scholarship of computing faculty.

Background

The subject of faculty scholarship arises regularly in gatherings of SIGCSE members. For example, a Birds-of-a-Feather Session on this subject drew a nice crowd at SIGCSE 2004.

• Anecdotal information suggests that computing faculty sometimes encounter confusion regarding expectations for evaluation and scholarship. Faculty in other disciplines may not realize:

  • basic characteristics of the discipline of computing
  • the significance of presenting papers at conferences
  • the scholarship that leads to grant proposals for NSF and other sources
  • the level of peer-review and the competitiveness of conference presentations and grants
  • the advantages of conference presentations versus journals and other print media
  • the substantial amount of scholarship required just to remain current with new technologies

• Anecdotal data also suggests that administrators and college councils may be vague regarding appropriate expectations, opportunities, and constraints for computing faculty.

  • External Review Committees sometimes report the need for considerable education of colleagues.
  • Administrators and college councils may view statements from individuals or small departments as being self-serving.

• The position of computer science education may be particularly misunderstood.

  • Careful educational research is not just teaching one's current courses.
  • Careful evaluation is more than saying "Students felt good about this experiment".

The Challenge

Faculty at various colleges and universities are sometimes called upon to develop statements of expectations for faculty scholarship. In practice, computing faculty sometimes may feel that they are starting from the beginning in developing such documents. Faculty often would like a sample statement from others regarding scholarship for computing faculty.

However, one statement regarding faculty scholarship cannot possibly address the diversity of priorities, policies, and practices at different institutions. The challenge for SIGCSE, therefore, is to identify possible approaches for the evaluation of faculty scholarship, while not making inappropriate assumptions about the nature of institutions or the types of scholarship that fit with a school's mission.

SIGCSE Committee Charge

The goal of this SIGCSE Committee on Models for the Evaluation of Faculty Scholarship is to gather resources for individuals, departments, and institutions regarding the evaluation of scholarship for computing faculty. In particular, the Committee will seek to identify or draft several (perhaps as many as 6) models for this evaluation that reflect some of the breadth of involvement in scholarship of found at a range of institutions.

• Some models might come from existing statements from schools.
• Some models might be composites of statements from several schools.
• Some models might be written by this Committee, based on experiences and practices identified from a range of schools surveyed.

Altogether, this Committee will work to develop a range of models, covering approaches that might be helpful to schools of various sizes and with differing perspectives (such as technical schools, liberal arts colleges, professional universities).

Resources

Although the SIGCSE Committee will need to explore and synthesize policy statements from organizations and institutions, the Committee may consider drawing upon several resources.

• The Computing Research Association has a helpful document on scholarship on its Web site:

  • "Best Practices Memo, Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure" by David Patterson, Lawrence Snyder, and Jeffrey Ullman, at http://www.cra.org/reports/tenure_review.html, approved by the CRA Board of Directors, August 1999

• The Committee on the Profession of the Mathematical Association of America has discussed the need for a statement of expectations for faculty scholarship within the context of mathematics and the mathematical sciences. Contact with this MAA Committee might yield a productive collaboration.

• Computing-related departments in several colleges and universities have full or partial statements on expectations for faculty scholarship.

Administrative Details

In the near future, an ACM-based listserv SIGCSE-FACULTY-EVAL will be established to facilitate communication for this Committee. When it is established, interested SIGCSE members should consult http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~sigcse/sigcse-committees/committee-listservs.shtml to sign up for the SIGCSE-FACULTY-EVAL listserv.

This document is available on the World Wide Web as

http://www.grinnell.edu/~sigcse/sigcse-committees/faculty-eval-models.xhtml

created 11 May 2005 last revised 7 January 2006 by Henry M. Walker