Adding categories may not solve the underlying problem.
One anonymized institutional interview. Prototype case, not a general evaluation of Elements.
Evidence
In the Elements notes, inconsistent data entry limits aggregation. Categories can fail to capture work with multiple meanings. Public impact and research may be artificially separated. Data can become flattened. Interdisciplinary and collaborative work exposes weaknesses in older systems. Simply adding categories may not solve the underlying problem.
Interpretation
The interview points toward relationships among process, milestones, evidence, audiences, and impact — a pathway — rather than a longer list of output types.
Limitations
Single account. The interviewee’s knowledge of downstream uses, including tenure and promotion, may be incomplete. Do not generalize to every Elements implementation.
Related questions
- How can research universities represent the pathways, milestones, collaborations, and forms of impact associated with creative and interdisciplinary scholarship without reducing that work to conventional publication-equivalency metrics?
- What kinds of creative and interdisciplinary work disappear in current faculty activity systems?
- What counts as evidence in creative and applied research?
- How can collaborative work be represented?
- Can existing systems capture meaningful milestones without requiring institutions to build entirely new platforms?
- Where are the limits of quantitative aggregation?