The evaluation of scholarship in academic promotion and tenure processes: Past, present, and future [version 1; referees: 2 approved]

Review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes significantly affect how faculty direct their own career and scholarly progression. Although RPT practices vary between and within institutions, and affect various disciplines, ranks, institution types, genders, and ethnicity in different ways, some consistent themes emerge when investigating what faculty would like to change about RPT. For instance, over the last few decades, RPT processes have generally increased the value placed on research, at the expense of teaching and service, which often results in an incongruity between how faculty actually spend their time vs. what is considered in their evaluation. Another issue relates to publication practices: most agree RPT requirements should encourage peer-reviewed works of high quality, but in practice, the value of publications is often assessed using shortcuts such as the prestige of the publication venue, rather than on the quality and rigor of peer review of each individual item. Open access and online publishing have made these issues even murkier due to misconceptions about peer review practices and concerns about predatory online publishers, which leaves traditional publishing formats the most desired despite their restricted circulation. And, efforts to replace journal-level measures such as the impact factor with more precise article-level metrics (e.g., citation counts and altmetrics) have been slow to integrate with the RPT process. Questions remain as to whether, or how, RPT practices should be changed to better reflect faculty work patterns and reduce pressure to publish in only the most prestigious traditional formats. To determine the most useful way to change RPT, we need to assess further the needs and perceptions of faculty and administrators, and gain a better understanding of the level of influence of written RPT guidelines and policy in an often vague process that is meant to allow for flexibility in assessing individuals

Why we publish where we do: Faculty publishing values and their relationship to review, promotion and tenure expectations

Using an online survey of academics at 55 randomly selected institutions across the US and Canada, we explore priorities for publishing decisions and their perceived importance within review, promotion, and tenure (RPT). We find that respondents most value journal readership, while they believe their peers most value prestige and related metrics such as impact factor when submitting their work for publication. Respondents indicated that total number of publications, number of publications per year, and journal name recognition were the most valued factors in RPT. Older and tenured respondents (most likely to serve on RPT committees) were less likely to value journal prestige and metrics for publishing, while untenured respondents were more likely to value these factors. These results suggest disconnects between what academics value versus what they think their peers value, and between the importance of journal prestige and metrics for tenured versus untenured faculty in publishing and RPT perceptions

Neural Protein Synthesis during Aging: Effects on Plasticity and Memory

During aging, many experience a decline in cognitive function that includes memory loss. The encoding of long-term memories depends on new protein synthesis, and this is also reduced during aging. Thus, it is possible that changes in the regulation of protein synthesis contribute to the memory impairments observed in older animals. Several lines of evidence support this hypothesis. For instance, protein synthesis is required for a longer period following learning to establish long-term memory in aged rodents. Also, under some conditions, synaptic activity or pharmacological activation can induce de novo protein synthesis and lasting changes in synaptic transmission in aged, but not young, rodents; the opposite results can be observed in other conditions. These changes in plasticity likely play a role in manifesting the altered place field properties observed in awake and behaving aged rats. The collective evidence suggests a link between memory loss and the regulation of protein synthesis in senescence. In fact, pharmaceuticals that target the signaling pathways required for induction of protein synthesis have improved memory, synaptic plasticity, and place cell properties in aged animals. We suggest that a better understanding of the mechanisms that lead to different protein expression patterns in the neural circuits that change as a function of age will enable the development of more effective therapeutic treatments for memory loss

Use of the journal impact factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations

We analyzed how often and in what ways the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is currently used in review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) documents of a representative sample of universities from the United States and Canada. 40% of research-intensive institutions and 18% of master’s institutions mentioned the JIF, or closely related terms. Of the institutions that mentioned the JIF, 87% supported its use in at least one of their RPT documents, 13% expressed caution about its use, and none heavily criticized it or prohibited its use. Furthermore, 63% of institutions that mentioned the JIF associated the metric with quality, 40% with impact, importance, or significance, and 20% with prestige, reputation, or status. We conclude that use of the JIF is encouraged in RPT evaluations, especially at research-intensive universities, and that there is work to be done to avoid the potential misuse of metrics like the JIF

How significant are the public dimensions of faculty work in review, promotion and tenure documents?

Much of the work done by faculty at both public and private universities has significant public dimensions: it is often paid for by public funds; it is often aimed at serving the public good; and it is often subject to public evaluation. To understand how the public dimensions of faculty work are valued, we analyzed review, promotion, and tenure documents from a representative sample of 129 universities in the US and Canada. Terms and concepts related to public and community are mentioned in a large portion of documents, but mostly in ways that relate to service, which is an undervalued aspect of academic careers. Moreover, the documents make significant mention of traditional research outputs and citation-based metrics: however, such outputs and metrics reward faculty work targeted to academics, and often disregard the public dimensions. Institutions that seek to embody their public mission could therefore work towards changing how faculty work is assessed and incentivized

The value of data and other non-traditional scholarly outputs in academic review, promotion, and tenure in Canada and the United States

Academics are regularly involved in a wide range of activities spanning research, teaching and service, and the breadth of necessary outputs for review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) in each category only continues to grow. How do faculty manage their academic careers in the face of such growing sets of demands? Although we know that discussions of research assessment across the academy are increasingly recognizing the need to value the creation of outputs beyond research published in peer-reviewed journals, it is not clear whether these discussions have made their way into formal assessment structures. By analyzing the extent to which non-traditional outputs, including data and software, are mentioned in the RPT documents of a representative set of 129 universities from the United States and Canada, this chapter offers empirical evidence from across many disciplines of which types of faculty work are recognized in the RPT processes, and which are not. We confirm that traditional outputs such as peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and monographs are mentioned almost universally, whereas data-related items such as datasets and databases are mentioned only by a fraction of institutions. We find that research-intensive institutions acknowledge more types of research outputs in general, whereas institutions that focus more on undergraduate and master’s degree programs tend to mention fewer forms of scholarship in their RPT guidelines. Within research-intensive institutions, units from the life sciences present a greater range of outputs in the guidelines offered to faculty, including the 15% that explicitly mention data-related outputs. In contrast, none of the academic units in mathematics and physical and social sciences in our sample recognize data-related outputs, and generally recognize fewer forms. Overall, we conclude that many current structures for faculty assessment do not explicitly recognize the increasing complexity and demands of faculty work