American Philological Association Board
Endorses Statement of Computer Support
Following is the final revised draft of the APA Statement of Computer
Support, which was put together over the past year by the Committee on
Computer Activities and recently endorsed by the APA Board.
William Johnson, chair of the APA Committee on Computer Activities says of
of the statement,
[It] differs deliberately from the rather more prescriptive
statement of similar name put out by MLA. Uppermost in our minds were the
following two concerns:
(1) We want to put into the hands of the membership
a document in which the Association states emphatically the need for
Classicists to have good access to the equipment, personnel,
technologically-enhanced classrooms, and so forth that are necessary for
taking full advantage of electronic resources. Such a statement could be
useful, for instance, in helping to persuade a dean who is skeptical that a
Classics Department has serious need for sophisticated electronic
equipment.
(2) We want to provide a statement by the Association which
might help in cases where promotion is in part dependent on technological
contributions to the profession. Without presuming to prescribe what
constitutes a contribution worthy of promotion, we wish nonetheless to
assert the principle that contributions in electronic media merit attention
on par with contributions made in print.
American Philological Association
Statement of Computer Support
Classical studies has now a tradition of active involvement with
computers. Due to the early availability of significant quantities of
machine-readable Greek and Latin texts as well as early and ambitious
efforts
to coordinate these and other data for the purposes of research and
pedagogy,
Classics has rightly been regarded as a leader in the use of computers for
humanistic inquiry. The purpose of this document is to outline support
considerations which may help Classics maintain this position of leadership.
1. Computer literacy. Many of the basic resources of Classical
scholarship and pedagogy are becoming or have become electronic. Among
these
resources are text and image data banks, basic tools such as bibliographies,
and the unstable but profound resources that come with connectivity to
computer
networks, from the chat of mailing lists to formal pedagogical interchange
to
complex and growing webs of "published" materials. Able use of such
resources
is therefore increasingly essential to our profession. With full awareness
of
the demands of time and the constraints of local finances, the Association
nonetheless affirms as an ideal the following:
- (a) Working scholars and teachers should as a matter of course include
competency in computer resources among the goals of their own continuing
education.
- (b) Graduate departments should make competency in the use of electronic
tools a basic element in the training of graduate students, with due concern
for the hiring, support, and promotion of faculty able to offer this
training.
2. Development and use of electronic resources. Useful electronic
tools will be developed principally by scholars and teachers and not by
computer support personnel. But faculty will often require technical
assistance in the construction of such tools and may also require
significant
training in software and hardware systems if they are to realize the
advantages
offered by electronic technology. In addition, there must be a suitable
forum
for the use of these tools if faculty efforts are to bear fruit. Though,
again, local constraints may make immediate or full implementation
impossible,
the following support considerations merit particular attention:
- (a) In order to make good use of electronic resources, faculty need to
have support beyond basic and continuing training in electronic
technologies.
Institutions are therefore urged to provide support personnel to faculty for
(1) systems advice, that is, technical advice on the feasibility of ideas
and
on the strategies for their implementation; and (2) direct technical
assistance, that is, the availability of technically-competent personnel to
accomplish tasks not requiring expert knowledge of the academic discipline.
- (b) In order to integrate electronic resources more fully into teaching
and learning, and in order to take full advantage of resources for research
purposes, it is requisite that institutions provide faculty with classrooms
and
other facilities (such as computing "laboratories") capable of giving access
to
available technology. Members who write or influence proposals to create
technological facilities are encouraged to contact the APA Committee on
Computer Activities for specific advice as needed.
3. Support for non-traditional scholarship and pedagogy in
technological areas. Faculty members who develop computer-based
educational applications and scholarly products should receive due
recognition
for such curricular, pedagogical, and scholarly contributions. Included
here
is the support and promotion of scholars who create enabling
technologies -- that is, technologies which permit other scholars to pose
new
questions in their research, or teach their classes in new ways. Examples
are
the generation of complex databases, or the development of software
specific
to research or pedagogy in the Classics. The creation of such enabling
technologies requires singular expertise both in high technology and in
Classical scholarship, involves intellectual and imaginative effort of a
high
order, and directly benefits the profession. In recognition of these facts,
and with the express purpose of fostering more creative activity combining
these skills, the Association urges that departments and institutions give
due
recognition in the tenure and promotion process to contributions to the
Classics that make significant use of electronic technologies. Electronic
contributions should be evaluated as other comparable materials, through
external review by experts, and without prejudice to the non-traditional
forms
in which such contributions are commonly disseminated. Institutions are
encouraged to contact the APA Committee on Computer Activities for guidance
in
cases where local resources are inadequate for the evaluation of
non-traditional contributions.
For more information, contact William A. Johnson at
wjohnson@jagat.com
Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments.
Vol. 1 No. 2 Summer 1996