Anthony's Story

A real story from someone in the English Dept. of a large state university.

"Anthony" is on tenure track and must apply to be re-appointed each year until he receives tenure.

These are some of the problems he faces as he develops materials for his conference with the dean this spring and for requesting reappointment next fall. He teaches in the English Department's courses for students preparing to teach in elementary schools.

His first problem is how to define what a "portable container" is, in the sense that his re-appointment materials are supposed to be submitted in a "portable container" (read: three ring binder). He is going to make the argument that a website saved to a CD is a portable container since it can be viewed at home or in the office, on a Mac or a PC, etc. But this is a silly requirement for web-based materials.

The second layer of complication comes from representing one's teaching in online spaces. For instance, he can put a syllabus in his materials (and probably will), but he doesn't think that this captures the day-to-day work of teaching. It doesn't help students with the small details that come up in class, nor does it "change" much from the beginning of the semester to the end. Nor, does it help me connect to other materials outside the course.

However, with a blog or a wiki, he can keep students updated, both during and in between class. For instance, this semester, he is using both a blog and a wiki with his students in Teaching Writing in the Elementary School. He wants to model writing instruction in digital environments while also keeping them up to date on their course work. Neither of these places are static, and while he can hyperlink to specific parts, the very nature of them requires that a reader interact with them in a way that a typical syllabus does not. In what ways will a personnel committee member who may not have any experience working with multimedia or web design understand the scope and sequence of work that goes in to work like this? How does it compare to other modes of teaching and by what basis, besides student opinion survey scores, can instructors objectively account for how students feel about learning in these digital environments (for instance, might someone say that this is all glitz meant to appeal to digital learners but that it does not engage them in substantive intellectual work?) Also, these don't fit in the "portable container," nor do they have a number attached to them like student evaluation scores (although he could survey students about their thoughts on them).

The third problem comes from how to represent one's own work and how that stands up to traditional notions of scholarship and peer review. For instance, he has a blog that has had over 1000 unique visitors in the past two months. Since his blog is self-published, and on various professional topics -- some in great depth, some just announcements for others -- how does he represent this as a publication. He knows that teachers and teacher educators read it. Is it sufficient to say that he has at least 1000 readers? Or, does he need testimonials from them? What counts as intellectual quality or rigor? Who says? Perhaps another way to put this, to update the old saying about trees: If a blogger blogs, but no one quotes or comments, does s/he make a sound?

What does this all mean for him? Well, under the department's by-laws, he is going to make the case that both his course blog/wiki and his professional blog fall into a category including audio, visual, electronic instructional/pedagogical/creative materials. He is not sure if this is exactly what the category means, mean, but plans to submit them that way.

Also, it raises the question -- if he makes all of his content public in this manner, how is he opening myself up from scrutiny (which he welcomes), imitation (which he also welcomes), or outright "stealing" of his intellectual property (which he doesn't welcome). To what extent can he claim intellectual property rights on materials that he develops for courses, even if that materials isn't hosted by the university? And, on a more pragmatic level -- does the time he spends blogging or working on course materials really matter, if it doesn't count towards scholarly work in his tenure considerations?