Comments on: 2. MLA Task Force Recommendations

By: Jeremy Butler

Jeremy Butler — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:09:51 +0000

The University of Alabama does not offer memorandums of understanding (What a terrific phrase! I only wish these were available in all areas of one’s life!), but tenure-track individuals are reviewed annually and officially advised as to their progress toward tenure.

By: KF

KF — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 08:02:58 +0000

This is an extremely interesting point, Dave; I’ve written about this kind of technical illiteracy elsewhere as being akin to the days when profs all either had secretaries or had their wives type their manuscripts for them (or both). Some of that technical illiteracy was then, and is now, a matter of social privilege — those of us who get to do the “higher” thinking are forgiven our inability to operate the machinery. But I suspect there’s a day coming, and soon, when asking someone to do your digital production for you will be looked at much like asking someone to type up your documents would be today…

By: David Parry

David Parry — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:59:30 +0000

Much of what is talked about throughout this paper is “software” focused, but this paragraph makes me think of “hardware” issues as well. That is some of the resistance to the digital I see, particularly in the humanities comes from a lack of ability to use the tools, or a lack of familiarity with the tools. This goes back to some of the divide that you were speaking of earlier with regards to the sciences and humanities. There is a basic hardware literacy that probably would need to supplement a digitization of scholarship. As a rather rudimentary example I think of the number of times I have meet professors who have no idea how to use tabbed browsing–a basic skill I think for navigating web based information, for example the trackback that you mention later. As content moves digital, printing out the journal article will no longer suffice, not only for the volume of printing that would have to be done, but also because printing a work which is native to the digital environment will fundamentally change it.

By: Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:01:52 +0000

Interesting – we do not get PTT letters, and I don’t know anybody else at an institution who does. The one danger with such a system is that the definition of “progress” gets so routinized and quantified that it can’t address the broad array of work that people do, especially alternative & long-term research projects. I know of instances where this boils down to annual “page counts” for publications, which is certainly not the answer…

By: Clancy Ratliff

Clancy Ratliff — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:48:52 +0000

Taking only this brief, simple step would go such a long way toward rewarding work appropriately. Also, what about annual progress toward tenure letters? We get these at East Carolina University; do they do this at other places too? We were in the top six universities for tenure clarity (subscribers only), so I don’t want to assume that they do PTT letters everywhere.