Developing Metrics To Evaluate Instructional Scholarship In Engineering

If valid and reliable means to assess instructional scholarship are identified, and they are accepted by the engineering community, then greater attention would be devoted to scholarly teaching by engineering faculty and departments. With this goal in mind, an ad hoc committee completed a study on the development and implementation of metrics for scholarly teaching or "instructional scholarship" within the discipline of engineering. The committee sought to identify new options (with respect to choices of existing metrics, processes for evaluation of metrics, and agents to perform the evaluation of metrics) for evaluating scholarly teaching and to assess broadly the options identified in terms such as their validity, reliability, and ease-of-use by engineering faculty. The intent is to contribute to greater acceptance of instructional scholarship within engineering disciplines. The committee examined specific choices for metrics of the scholarship of teaching, schemes for the evaluation of selected metrics, and agent(s) who will evaluate the selected metrics. This paper summarizes the committee report.