Each of the hypertext articles in the CoverWeb takes a different position on how departments should evaluate computer-related work for purposes of hiring, tenure and promotion. However, these positions on evaluation involve a limited number of possible changes in existing evaluation procedures.

• We could keep the existing categories of Research, Teaching, and Service and develop equivalences between online work and traditional work. Some kinds of online work will fit the categories more readily than others. At some point, there will have to be at least a series of small changes in the categories to accomodate those differences. As technology continues to evolve, this approach to evaluation will necessitate ongoing revision of evaluation guidelines. Seth Katz discusses the strengths and weaknesses of such an evolutionary approach to revising the process of evaluation.

• We can change the categories that we use to evaluate academic work. These changes might involve

  Creating a new canon of categories that takes better account of the nature of computer-related work

  • Cindy Nahrwold proposes a revision of the categories starting from a redefinition of what we think of as "scholarship." She argues particularly for valuing "prototypical electronic scholarship": work that reveals the process of the creation of ideas;

    Creating a system of evaluation that blurs the distinctions between categories and allows for freer descriptions of academic activities

  • Under such a system, work might be valued in several ways at once: a single activity, such as the collaborative writing of this CoverWeb introduction, might be evaluated as research, professional development, and representing the university to other institutions and organizations. Janice Walker argues strongly for the need to break out of the traditional categories of Research, Teaching, and Service, and to create new criteria that will allow us to adequately evaluate new forms of work. Janet Cross and Kristian Fuglevik argue for the need to create new categories of academic activity to adequately evaluate the kind of MOO-based work that they do, which is research, teaching, and service all at once. Seth Katz discusses some of the problems with any revision of existing evaluation categories.

• We also could either keep or change the existing categories, but change the ways in which we evaluate both traditional and online work to include a greater amount of discursive evaluation. Online work provides more opportunities for collaboration and for works that continue to evolve, rather than reaching a fixed, published final form; online work therefore places a greater overt focus and value on the process of writing and working with ideas than traditional work can. It appears that the best way to evaluate such process-oriented work is through more discursive accounts of what we do. The possibilities of and problems with discursive evalaution are explored in the CoverWeb authors' HyperNews Forum and Janet Cross and Kristian Fuglevik make a particularly strong argument for the need for discursive presentations in evaluating MOO administration, teaching, and research.