On 19 Oct 2013, at 18:05, Melinda Shore
<melinda(_dot_)shore(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
On 10/19/13 8:55 AM, Adrian Farrel wrote:
Presume that it is not an issue for existing ADs (else they wouldn't have
got there).
Maybe anyone who was thinking of standing who would find this helpful could
speak up?
It's drifted back and forth across my radar for a number of years
and I have to say that it would make no difference whatsoever. I
can't imagine that it would make any difference to academic
candidates, either, as it would not contribute to a tenure decision
(it's not that the document is only arguably refereed for
publication, but that the chair or AD isn't even an author. Some
universities are quite picky about what counts and what doesn't
(refereed journal articles count, textbooks don't). I did my
graduate work at the University of Chicago, where what were called
"How we do it good here" papers were held in very high disregard.
It's a bit different in the UK. Things are driven by the REF exercise every few
years, and there it's the quality of your best publications and any impact case
studies that are a large part of the contribution. The universities have to
meet the REF requirements. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Excellence_Framework.
RFCs can't be used for REF, as they are not considered as academic publications
(though the rigour applied to many RFCs can be greater than many
conference/journals!). I suppose it *might* be possible to include the work
done from an AD position as part of an impact case study, but I know of noone
who has done so - I think Mark and Jon served on the IAB not the IESG.
And I expect many countries are different, e.g. not all countries have tenure
for academics.
At any rate, no, it would make no difference to me. Might to someone
else but I'm having a hard time imagining who (the issue when I was
with the networking behemoth was time taken away from what they
hired me for, not recognition or lack thereof).
The reason I like naming the AD/WG chair on an RFC is not for their credit, but
to make the document provenance more explicit. It's not a strong preference
though.
But, as I just posted in another note, I don't see a real downside
to adding it, and as someone else pointed out it may be useful for
answering provenance-type questions.
The main problem remains the time (and cost) of taking on a 40-hour a week
"job" if you accept and succeed in a nomination for an AD position, and what
suffers in terms of teaching and research while you do so. It seems less and
less people can make that committment, even if their employers do support them.
Tim