Academic/Career Recognition Task Force




The Digital Library for Earth System Education

    The DLESE home page provides an introduction to the goals and objectives of this broad-based geoscience community effort to establish a Digital Library for Earth System Education.

    The DLESE Steering Committee and 4 Subcommittees are in place and have submitted a number of proposals to several funding agencies seeking support for this effort.

    At the Coolfont Organizational Meeting in August, 1999 the Collections Subcommittee proposed the following:

      "Establish mechanisms for providing academic career credit to creators/suppliers of materials".

      Creators of materials that are accepted into the reviewed collection of DLESE should receive academic/career recognition for their creative accomplishments. It is the responsibility of the Academic/Career Recognition Task Force (ARTF) to insure that review processes and selection criteria are academically sound, respectable, defensible, succinctly stated and widely disseminated to those who serve as part of the review process. That is, academic recognition must be earned.

Academic/Career Recognition Task Force

    Review processes and expectations for faculty accomplishment have a strong cultural component that is rooted in the academic backgrounds of the senior faculty, upper administration, and history of each institution. ARTF must be viewed in the same dispassionate way as an editorial board of a scientific journal or the review panel of a federal funding agency.

      ARTF will not become an advocate for promoting changes in a local culture nor will it promote the library by evolving into a marketing function.

      ARTF will provide input to the Collections Committee and the Steering Committee regarding the perceptions of faculty and administrators of proposed review processes by January 2001 and will go out of business at that time.

      Of necessity, ARTF must work closely with those involved in devising the assessment, evaluation and selection processes. Members of ARTF have been selected to provide a broad and cross-cutting panel.

      Bryan L. Aivazian, Science Teacher Wyoming Center for Problem Based Learning, DLESE Steering Committee
      Tom Boyd, Colorado School of Mines, DLSE Technology Committee Chair
      John C. Butler, University of Houston
      Warren Huff, University of Cincinnati
      Kim Kastens, Columbia University, DLESE Collections Committee Chair
      Charles Kluth, Chevron, San Ramon, CA
      Charlie McClennen, Colgate University
      Heather McDonald, College of William and Mary
      Bill Prothero, University of California at Santa Barbara , DLESE Users Committee Chair
      Mohan Ramamurthy, University of Illinois, DLESE Services Chair
      Randy Richardson, University of Arizona
      Steve Semken, Dine College

      Send To ARTF

    The Collections Committee now has a web page with connections to appropriate documents.

Perspective

    Denning (The Leading Edge, 1997, 1014) recognizes four types of research that can produce innovations -- changes in the way a community works:

      (1) generating new ideas;
      (2) generating new practices;
      (3) generating new products; and
      (4) generating new business.

    In the first type of research (1) emphasis is placed on originality and novelty with grantsmanship and peer reviewed publication serving as a certification of both. A faculty member is practicing the second kind of research (2) when she/he offers new ways to think about, understand, and be competent in a subject. The emphasis of research (2) is on "understanding that produces competence". Denning notes that "a large number of faculty are expertly practicing the second kind of research while under the illusion that they are engaging in the first - and not getting credit for either."

    ARTF believes that the development of resources accepted for inclusion in DLESE is evidence, at a minimum, of successful engagement in Denning's (1999) research (2), teaching and service.

Gathering Input From The Geosciences Community

    Several surveys have been drafted rather than attempting a "one size fits all" approach. You may download copies of the survey results.

Power Point Presentation - University of Montana Meeting, July 1, 2000