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Best Practices Memo: PDF (25 KB) Introduction
The fields of computing and information science and engineering have a strong commitment to interdisciplinary work, with CISE researchers collaborating with electrical engineers in the design of low-power chips; with linguists in the development of natural-language processing systems; with biologists in the exploration of the genetic code; with economists in the formation of theories of on-line commerce; and with statisticians in the discovery of new ways to extract information from rich sets of data—to name just a few examples. Some of these efforts have even led to the establishment of new disciplines, such as bioinformatics and data mining. While “core” areas of computation—such as operating systems, programming languages, networking, and so on—will continue to produce key advances, there is an emergent agreement among computer and information scientists that close interactions with other disciplines are essential to the health and advancement of our field. The agencies that fund research in computing and information science have also recognized the value of interdisciplinary work, and have begun to encourage or even require it. Recent examples, from the last half of 2007, include the NSF program on Cyber-Enabled Discovery, which teams computer scientists with physical and/or social scientists; the NSF program on Innovation and on Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access, which draws on the integration of library and archival science, computer and information science, and domain science; a large number of active funding opportunities at NIH that require the collaboration of biologists and medical scientists with experts in bioinformatics and computation biology; and the IMLS/NEH Digital Partnership Program, which requires collaborations among libraries, museums, archives, universities, and other cultural organizations. Not surprisingly, then, academic departments of computer and information science are increasingly recruiting and hiring people with interdisciplinary skills. Of the sixty-five advertisements posted to the CRA Job Announcement page between December 1, 2007 and January 2, 2008, twenty-four were either for a specific interdisciplinary area (e.g., bioinformatics, music informatics, robotics), or specifically mentioned that interdisciplinary skills were required or preferred. An additional five advertisements noted that the hiring department had strong interdisciplinary connections. While this indicates a healthy responsiveness in the field to the broader research and funding trends, it also poses challenges for both computing and information departments and their faculty. A particular challenge involves the tenure process for interdisciplinary faculty. We are not aware of definitive research that evaluates practices in managing the careers of interdisciplinary faculty. Therefore, our recommendations are based on the shared experience of a large number of unit heads (including the authors) and anecdotal information on the practices of units with successful interdisciplinary programs. The recommendations provided in the next two sections were developed to help department heads manage the life cycle of hiring, mentoring and promoting junior interdisciplinary faculty. The recommendations in the final section are aimed at the interdisciplinary junior faculty. While so focused, we do not ignore the influence that other players can have. Deans and provosts can promote interdisciplinarity by providing a clear signal of its importance, promoting tenure and promotion policies that are consistent with the recommendations below, and actively involving themselves in handling interdisciplinary careers. Senior faculty can shape the culture of the department by taking a broad view of relevant quality metrics, avoiding parochialism, and stepping up to the plate to provide the additional mentoring that young interdisciplinary faculty may require. However, junior (untenured) faculty with appointments in more than one department face significant additional challenges that must be carefully managed. (We are not considering “dry” or “courtesy” appointments here, but only appointments that carry a financial commitment from more than one department.) The difficulties include:
Because of this, a number of universities avoid giving appointments in two or more departments to junior faculty, but instead hire them into one department and help them foster connections to other units; in such cases, the faculty members may shift to a joint appointment after tenure is obtained. We discuss single-unit appointments below. Other universities have developed effective practices for avoiding or reducing the challenges that arise with a joint hire. Careful and explicit coordination between the chairs of the departments involved is essential, for example, to organize teaching and service loads and review requirements and progress toward tenure. Ideally, the chairs will meet at least annually to discuss this coordination. Also, steps can be taken to lessen the handicap of having to satisfy two promotion and tenure committees, including:
In any case, a detailed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) must be drawn up among the units involved at the time of the hire, and the faculty member should be given a copy. It should specify the percentage of time to be spent in each unit; which units are responsible for start-up funds, moving support, and summer salary, if any; what the requirements will be for teaching and service within each unit; what the procedure will be for annual merit reviews; all details of the third-year and tenure review (timeline, committee selection, elements of the review process, etc.); and retreat rights. Sample MOU templates are available on the Web [2]. In general, joint appointments after tenure do not cause the same types of problems; and hiring a newly minted Ph.D. into a single unit by no means precludes shifting his or her appointment to a joint one after tenure has been successfully achieved. The difficulties may also be less severe for junior faculty who are hired with several year s of experience and established research programs. Interdisciplinary Tenure within a Single Department Even when an interdisciplinary faculty member holds an appointment within a single department, challenges still may arise in the tenure evaluation. The single greatest difficulty is that faculty tend to judge other faculty according to the norms and criteria of their own discipline, and often departments tend to believe that their approach to research is the best one. This perspective can not only make it difficult for interdisciplinary faculty to receive a fair hearing, but if not managed well can cause tension and hostility among different faculty in a department that has hired people with different perspectives. Even when faculty members conducting the evaluation adopt an open-minded stance, it may be challenging for them to calibrate the metrics for impact and academic success within another discipline, even a closely related one. An example that is readily recognizable to people in computer science is the value of conference papers in most CS areas (high) versus that in some CS areas (e.g., computational science), and in many other fields (low). In addition to the need to evaluate the types of research products—books, journal papers, conference papers, artifacts, and so on—it is also critical to understand the quality of each product. Which conferences are important? Which awards carry the greatest prestige? Which people are the luminaries whose letters of recommendation should be taken most seriously, and which are known to be hypercritical? What is the accepted style and focus of letters of recommendation? Which comments in a letter are irrelevant and which omissions are significant? In tenure cases, there is a great deal of implicit knowledge within a discipline that is taken into account that may be missing in interdisciplinary cases. Another challenge is interpreting the candidate’s support letters. If a faculty member is publishing in multiple areas, it is likely that some of the referees will only have knowledge of a portion of the member’s work. For instance, the roboticist who works in both computer science and mechanical engineering may publish in the journals of both disciplines, but the senior mechanical engineer who writes a letter on her behalf may only recognize a small portion of her work—that which was published in ME journals—and may view the candidate as having an insufficient body of research relative to other mechanical engineers. Finally, it is increasingly true that interdisciplinary research takes place in research centers and institutes that are affiliated with the university but separate from the department. As a result, even a faculty member with a full appointment within a particular department may spend a significant amount of time at such a center or institute, rather than in the department; may work more with professional researchers rather than students—and, indeed, may have a reduced teaching load as a result of financial support from the center; and may be more focused on playing a role in a big project, sometimes at the expense of publishing.
Note that a number of these recommendations also apply to faculty without interdisciplinary interests: do for your interdisciplinary faculty what you would do for all junior faculty—meet to discuss career goals, provide thorough periodic evaluation, provide guidance and support, match teaching and service duties to career needs, and so on—but do it even more intensively. Most important, remember that faculty are not hired to do research in a narrow area of their discipline. A faculty member is not derelict if he or she decides to change areas to start working closely with colleagues in other departments. Rather, faculty are hired to do outstanding research and teaching, wherever that leads them. Young Faculty Interested in Interdisciplinary Research Young faculty candidates who seek to pursue interdisciplinary research should keep in mind that different departments have different cultures that may encourage or hinder interdisciplinary research. When interviewing in a department, one should seek information about the formal and informal attitudes toward interdisciplinary research: Does the department encourage joint appointments? Does it use any of the methods listed above to encourage interdisciplinary research? What fraction of the faculty engage in interdisciplinary research? End Notes [1] Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, The National Academies Press (2004).
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