MLA Guidelines

May 2, 2012
Stacey Mason

The MLA recently issued guidelines for evaluating work in digital humanities and digital media.

Institutions and departments should develop written guidelines so that faculty members who create, study, and teach with digital objects; engage in collaborative work; or use technology for pedagogy can be adequately and fairly evaluated and rewarded. The written guidelines should provide clear directions for appointment, reappointment, merit increases, tenure, and promotion and should take into consideration the growing number of resources for evaluating digital scholarship and the creation of born-digital objects.

The fact that this even needs to be stated is ridiculous, but it might be a step in bridging some of the evaluation gaps between the humanities and the sciences (for example, different approaches to co-authorship, conferences vs. journals, etc.) that are used to evaluate scholarship.

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