Biology subjects

Niles, M. T.

Publications and source records attributed to Niles, M. T..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

The role of collegiality in academic review, promotion, and tenure

Review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes at universities typically assess candidates along three dimensions: research, teaching, and service. In recent years, some have argued for the inclusion of a controversial fourth criterion: collegiality. While collegiality plays a role in the morale and effectiveness of academic departments, it is amorphic and difficult to assess, and could be misused to stifle dissent or enforce homogeneity. Despite this, some institutions have opted to include this additional element in their RPT documents and processes, but it is unknown the extent of this practice and how it varies across institution type and disciplinary units. This study is based on two sets of data: survey data collected as part of a project that explored the publishing decisions of faculty and how these related to perceived importance in RPT processes, and 864 RPT documents collected from 129 universities from the United States and Canada. We analysed these RPT documents to determine the degree to which collegiality and related terms are mentioned, if they are defined, and if and how they may be assessed during the RPT process. Results show that when collegiality and related terms appear in these documents they are most often just briefly mentioned. It is less common for collegiality and related terms to be defined or assessed in RPT documents. Although the terms are mentioned across all types of institutions, there is a statistically significant difference in how prevalent they are at each. Collegiality is more commonly mentioned in the documents of doctoral research-focused universities (60%), than of masters universities and colleges (31%) or baccalaureate colleges (15%). Results from the accompanying survey of faculty also support this finding: individuals from R-Types were more likely to perceive collegiality to be a factor in their RPT processes. We conclude that collegiality likely plays an important role in RPT processes, whether it is explicitly acknowledged in policies and guidelines or not, and point to several strategies in how it might be best incorporated in the assessment of academic careers.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2021

How faculty define quality, prestige, and impact in research

Despite the calls for change, there is significant consensus that when it comes to evaluating publications, review, promotion, and tenure processes should aim to reward research that is of high "quality," has an "impact," and is published in "prestigious" journals. Nevertheless, such terms are highly subjective and present challenges to ascertain precisely what such research looks like. Accordingly, this article responds to the question: how do faculty from universities in the United States and Canada define the terms quality, prestige, and impact? We address this question by surveying 338 faculty members from 55 different institutions. This studys findings highlight that, despite their highly varied definitions, faculty often describe these terms in overlapping ways. Additionally, results shown that marked variance in definitions across faculty does not correspond to demographic characteristics. This studys results highlight the need to more clearly implement evaluation regimes that do not rely on ill-defined concepts. Financial DisclosureFunding for this project was provided to JPA, MTN, ECM, and LAS from the OpenSociety Foundations (OR2017-39637). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Related MaterialsOther publications related to this project, including a series of infographics summarizing findings, can be found at: https://www.scholcommlab.ca/research/rpt-project/ Survey responses can be found at the following publication: Niles, Meredith T.; Schimanski, Lesley A.; McKiernan, Erin C.; Alperin, Juan Pablo,2020, "Data for: Why we publish where we do", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MRLHNO, Harvard Dataverse, V1 Data regarding RPT documents can be found at the following data publication: Alperin, Juan Pablo; Munoz Nieves, Carol; Schimanski, Lesley; McKiernan, Erin C.;Niles, Meredith T., 2018, "Terms and Concepts found in Tenure and Promotion Guidelines from the US and Canada", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/VY4TJE, Harvard Dataverse, V3, UNF:6:PQC7QoilolhDrokzDPxxyQ== [fileUNF]

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2020

Global relationships between crop diversity and nutritional stability

Nutritional stability - a food systems capacity to provide sufficient nutrients despite disturbance - is a critical feature of sustainable agriculture, especially in light of ongoing climate change. Yet, measuring nutritional stability has proven challenging. Addressing this challenge will help identify resilient food systems, detect shortcomings in nutrient availability, and evaluate if stability-focused interventions actually work. We develop a novel approach that uses 55 years of crop data across 184 countries to assemble over 22,000 bipartite crop-nutrient networks. We then quantify the tolerance of these networks to disturbance simulated via sequential crop loss (Fig. 1) and evaluate patterns of crop diversity and nutritional stability across countries, over time and between crop supply scenarios (imports versus in country production). We observe a positive, saturating relationship between crop diversity and nutritional stability across countries; however there is substantial variability between countries over time. Next, despite crop diversity gains since 1961, nutritional stability has remained stagnant or decreased in all regions except Asia. A decline in the average number of nutritional links per network (range: -3 to -18% across regions) and the aforementioned saturating relationship explain this counter-intuitive finding. Finally, we find that imports increase crop diversity and improve or sustain stability, indicating that nutrient availability is market exposed in many countries, particularly developing states. Although applied globally, our approach is applicable across levels of organization, from household intake to sub-national production, and provides a way forward for understanding the contributions of crop diversity to the stability of nutrients available for human consumption. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=113 SRC="FIGDIR/small/227520v1_fig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (19K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@d6712forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@a0cc45org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@c2d6bforg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1a0a459_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG O_FLOATNOFigure 1C_FLOATNO A new approach for understanding nutritional stability. The robustness of networks, such as a crop-nutrient network (a), can be gauged through assembling attack tolerance curves (b & c), whereby as nodes (i.e. crops) are eliminated constituent nutrients are lost. Of course, removal order matters (b vs c), therefore permuted combinations of crop loss generate average loss curves (see Methods). We use the area under this curve as our measure of nutritional stability (RN). Crop-nutrient networks with few redundant connections are susceptible to crop removal and can experience rapid nutrient loss (e.g. Maldives; d), whereas countries with a diverse food supply are more robust (e.g. China; e). This unitless metric is generalizable across different levels of aggregation (e.g. individual, household, community, national food system). C_FIG

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Why we publish where we do: Faculty publishing values and their relationship to review, promotion and tenure expectations

Using an online survey of academics at 55 randomly selected institutions across the US and Canada, we explore priorities for publishing decisions and their perceived importance within review, promotion, and tenure (RPT). We find that respondents most value journal readership, while they believe their peers most value prestige and related metrics such as impact factor when submitting their work for publication. Respondents indicated that total number of publications, number of publications per year, and journal name recognition were the most valued factors in RPT. Older and tenured respondents (most likely to serve on RPT committees) were less likely to value journal prestige and metrics for publishing, while untenured respondents were more likely to value these factors. These results suggest disconnects between what academics value versus what they think their peers value, and between the importance of journal prestige and metrics for tenured versus untenured faculty in publishing and RPT perceptions.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2019

What’s in Your Body of Water? Reducing the Psychological Distance of Pharmaceutical Pollution through Metaphoric Framing in Risk Communication (A Pilot Study)

Aquatic pharmaceutical pollution poses ecotoxicological risks to the environment and human health. Consumer behaviors represent a significant source of pharmaceutical compounds found in water. Thus, understanding public perceptions of aquatic pharmaceutical pollution and developing effective risk communication techniques are critical to engaging society in the type of widespread change necessary for addressing the presence of pharmaceuticals in water. This mixed-methods pilot study applies conceptual metaphor theory in conjunction with construal level theory of psychological distance to assess the relationship of metaphoric framing to perceptions of aquatic pharmaceutical contamination across four principal dimensions of psychological distance (geographic, social, and temporal distance, and uncertainty). Additionally, this study assesses the direct impact of metaphor use on concern and willingness to act, which are positively associated with perceived psychological distance. Data were collected from a convenience sample (n = 20) of university students in Burlington, Vermont using cognitive interviewing. Results indicate that participants initially perceived pharmaceutical pollution as socially and geographically distant, temporally both distant and proximal, and agreed that the issue is certain. Representing aquatic pharmaceutical contamination through metaphor significantly reduced perceived social and geographic distance, suggesting a relationship between metaphoric framing and psychological distance warranting additional research. Metaphor use did not directly nor significantly impact concern or willingness to act. Additionally, participants preferred the metaphorically-framed visual intervention to the non-metaphor visual intervention. Theoretical and practical implications of metaphor use in risk communications are discussed.

scientific communication and education↗