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E-publish or perish
Read, Dwight ANTHRO (Read@ANTHRO.SSCNET.UCLA.EDU)
Tue, 14 Jun 1994 11:30:00 PDT
Mcreery writes:
"And then I ask myself, what if a committee and the person being evaluated
both had a chance to see influence and acceptance mapped on a big color
monitor with recommendations and citations continually updated by the
massively parallel processors that were also running the imaging software?
At this point, fantasy, sure. But that's where the future begins."
Mcreery is pointing to INFORMATION-- and that's where it is at. Control
information and you have power; conversely, when information is widely
dispersed then power goes down. Currently, most review processes in most
universities operate under a veil of secrecy/confidentiality guised as the
way to get honest, critical evaluations. Yes and no. It is also the means
for abuse. Without information it becomes impossible to challenge biased
reviews; information is the only route to challenge biased reviews. But if
the University of California is any example, opening the doors of
confidentiality will be and is fought at every turn, both by administrators
and by faculty. The recent court decision that requires unedited copies of
confidential materials to be made available to candidates in review processes
at least gives those being reviewed the possibility of challenging biased and
inaccurate assessments of research (when such bias and inaccurate assessments
occur--It should be noted that in my experience most reviews are reasonable
attempts to arrive at a sound judgement.)
D. Read
READ@ANTHRO.SSCNET.UCLA.EDU
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