Editing Wikipedia Helps Professor Attain Tenure 139
Hugh Pickens writes "Lianna Davis writes in Watching the Watchers that Michel Aaij has won tenure in the Department of English and Philosophy at Auburn University Montgomery in Alabama in part because of the more than 60,000 edits ... he's written for Wikipedia. ... Aaij felt that his contributions to Wikipedia merited mention in his tenure portfolio and a few weeks before the portfolio was due two of his colleagues suggested, after they had heard him talk once or twice about the peer-review process for a Good Article, that he should include it under 'research' as well as 'service.'"
Over 60,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
And rightly so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia irrelevant for Physics positions (Score:4, Insightful)
We're in a job search right now for two tenure-track professors in a Physics Department. None of the five candidates interviewed so far has mentioned Wikipedia. I'm pretty sure that if one did, he wouldn't gain any credit by doing so.
Our department made recommendations for a tenure decision earlier this year. No mention of Wikipedia in the supporting materials for that candidate, nor have I ever seen such a mention. I am pretty sure that neither my colleagues nor the administrators involved in granting tenure would give any credit for editing Wikpedia.
Re:Over 60,000? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe this guy needs to list Editing Wikipedia as his primary job and Professor at Auburn University as his 2nd job?
Perhaps, but I suspect this story says more about Auburn University Montgomery than it says about his research profile.
I had never heard of Auburn University Montgomery before today; given the nature of this story, I don't expect ever to hear of it in any serious context again.
Good scholar, good citizen, good "netizen", too (Score:5, Insightful)
A search [aum.edu] of the Auburn Montgomery website, produces several "News & Events" hits which show Dr. Aaij giving public lectures and supporting student scholars. A Google Scholar Search [google.com] on Michel Aaij shows a regular publication record in peer reviewed journals dating back to the late 1990s, at least. This guy is a good scholar and, from the article, strikes me as a good colleague, even without the Wiki contributions. He deserves tenure. The fact that he found the time for this other form of service/scholarship on top of his other work is very commendable and I'm glad to see it included in his portfolio. The fact that this did make it into his portfolio is better for Wikipedia than it is for Dr. Aaij, who I think wouldn't have gotten tenure no matter what. In any case, I say "Congratulations, Dr. Aaij!"
Likely had nothing to do with his wiki edits (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing in the article suggests to me that his wiki editing helped him get tenure. In fact, it even says: "Michel expects his academic C.V. was strong enough to support his tenure without his Wikipedia contributions". There's no connection between the two. This is like saying that, since his name was also on his C.V., being named Michel helped him get tenure.
Re:Over 60,000? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah... so most professors should list "Writing Books" and "Publishing Articles" and "Applying for Grants" as their primary job and "Professor" as their secondary jobs then.
Somewhere below that they can put "actually teaching students instead of letting my grad students do it".
Re:Over 60,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
at least he's probably doing better than most professors in terms of being useful to humanity in general.
If his edits are even half decent then more people will read them and actually learn something than ever will from many entire departments.
Most of them never write anything of worth which isn't behind a paywall.
an expert contributing his time to an open and free store of knowledge should be lauded.
It really is amusing though how threatened some professors feel about the whole idea of wikipedia-like systems.
I had one a while back who was so bitter that he spent time just about every class ranting about how awful it was. "AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO WRITES THESE THINGS!!" meanwhile one of his more gifted masters students is mugging away behind him and mouthing "me".
On the other hand I had another professor who pointed the class towards a particular wiki entry(and a specific revision) which he'd read and considered to be extremely well written and without error which explained the subject material extremely clearly.